[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE IMPORTANCE OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHERS IN RAISING ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
April 21, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-51
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio, Chairman
Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin, Vice George Miller, California
Chairman Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Cass Ballenger, North Carolina Major R. Owens, New York
Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Donald M. Payne, New Jersey
Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey
California Lynn C. Woolsey, California
Michael N. Castle, Delaware Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Sam Johnson, Texas Carolyn McCarthy, New York
James C. Greenwood, Pennsylvania John F. Tierney, Massachusetts
Charlie Norwood, Georgia Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Fred Upton, Michigan Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio
Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan David Wu, Oregon
Jim DeMint, South Carolina Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Johnny Isakson, Georgia Susan A. Davis, California
Judy Biggert, Illinois Betty McCollum, Minnesota
Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania Danny K. Davis, Illinois
Patrick J. Tiberi, Ohio Ed Case, Hawaii
Ric Keller, Florida Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Tom Osborne, Nebraska Denise L. Majette, Georgia
Joe Wilson, South Carolina Chris Van Hollen, Maryland
Tom Cole, Oklahoma Tim Ryan, Ohio
Jon C. Porter, Nevada Timothy H. Bishop, New York
John Kline, Minnesota
John R. Carter, Texas
Marilyn N. Musgrave, Colorado
Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee
Phil Gingrey, Georgia
Max Burns, Georgia
Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director
John Lawrence, Minority Staff Director
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on April 21, 2004................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Boehner, Hon. John A., Chairman, Committee on Education and
the Workforce.............................................. 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Miller, Hon. George, Ranking Member, Committee on Education
and the Workforce.......................................... 5
Statement of Witnesses:
Bailey, Tracey, 1993 Teacher of the Year, National Projects
Director, Association of American Educators................ 32
Prepared statement of.................................... 34
Landgraf, President and Chief Executive Officer, Educational
Testing Service............................................ 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 14
McCown, R. Gaynor, Executive Director, The Teaching
Commission................................................. 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Mitchell, Eileen, Teacher, The William T. Davis School (P.S.
31), Staten Island, New York............................... 27
Prepared statement of.................................... 29
Wiener, Ross, Policy Director, The Education Trust........... 19
Prepared statement of.................................... 22
Additional materials supplied:
American Occupational Therapy Association, Statement
submitted for the record................................... 59
Higher Education Consortium for Special Education, Letter
submitted for the record................................... 62
Norby, Stephanie L., Executive Director, Smithsonian Center
for Education and Museum Studies, Smithsonian Institution,
Statement submitted for the record......................... 65
THE IMPORTANCE OF HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHERS IN RAISING ACADEMIC
ACHIEVEMENT
----------
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
U.S. House of Representatives
Committee on Education and the Workforce
Washington, DC
----------
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:37 a.m., in
room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Boehner
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Boehner, Petri, Ballenger, McKeon,
Castle, Johnson, Ehlers, Isakson, Biggert, Osborne, Musgrave,
Burns, Miller, Kildee, Owens, Payne, Woolsey, Hinojosa,
Tierney, Kucinich, Holt, Majette, Van Hollen and Bishop.
Staff present: Julian Baer, Legislative Assistant; Amanda
Farris, Professional Staff Member; Kevin Frank, Professional
Staff Member; Sally Lovejoy, Director of Education and Human
Resources Policy; Paula Nowakowski, Staff Director; Deborah L.
Samantar, Committee Clerk/Intern Coordinator; Rich Stombres,
Professional Staff Member; Ellynne Bannon, Legislative
Assistant/Education; Alice Cain, Minority Legislative
Associate/Education; Tom Kiley, Minority Press Secretary; John
Lawrence, Minority Staff Director; Ricardo Martinez, Minority
Legislative Associate/Education; Alex Nock, Minority
Legislative Associate/Education; Joe Novotny, Minority
Legislative Staff/Education; Lynda Theil, Minority Legislative
Associate/Education; and Daniel Weiss, Minority Special
Assistant to the Ranking Member.
Chairman Boehner. A quorum being present, the Committee on
Education and the Workforce will come to order. We're holding
this hearing today to hear testimony on the importance of
highly qualified teachers in raising academic achievement.
Under the Committee rules, opening statements are limited to
the Chairman and Ranking Member. And with that, if any other
members have opening statements, the hearing record will remain
open for 14 days to allow those statements and any other
extraneous material referenced during today's hearing to be
submitted in the official hearing record. Without objection, so
ordered.
I want to welcome each of you to our hearing today as the
Committee continues its focus on the implementation of the
bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act. Before I begin my opening
statement, I want to take a moment to congratulate Mrs. Kathy
Mellor for receiving this year's National Teacher of the Year
award. Mrs. Mellor, a Rhode Island middle school teacher,
reshaped the English-as-a-second-language program in her school
district. And I'd like to congratulate the teachers who've
received this honor in their individual states, as well.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN A. BOEHNER, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the importance
of highly qualified teachers in improving academic achievement
for all students--regardless of race, income, geography,
English fluency, or disability.
The success of education reform efforts is increasingly
seen as directly dependent on the quality of classroom
instruction, and ensuring the quality of America's 3.2 million
teachers is an essential part of providing an excellent
education to all of our children. A growing number of studies
provide conclusive evidence that teacher quality is the primary
school-related factor affecting student achievement. Students
who are taught by effective and competent teachers excel
quickly, while those who are assigned to the least effective
teachers lag behind and often never catch up.
Especially troubling is the evidence that disadvantaged
students whose future depends most on a positive school
experience are often assigned the least qualified teachers. For
example, a report from one of our witnesses today found that in
every subject area, students in high poverty schools were more
likely than other students to be taught by teachers without
even a minor in the subjects they are teaching.
The No Child Left Behind Act asked each state, in exchange
for billions of dollars of Federal teacher quality aid, to
develop and implement a plan to place a highly qualified
teacher in every public classroom by the end of the '05-'06
school year. States have vast flexibility in defining what
constitutes a highly qualified teacher, and at a minimum,
teachers must have full state certification, a bachelor's
degree, and demonstrate competence in core academic subjects
they teach. Individual states, not the Federal Government,
design and implement measures to assess subject matter
competency, which may include rigorous state academic tests; a
bachelor's degree in a core academic subject; or the High
Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation or HOUSSE
procedure for veteran teachers.
Since No Child Left Behind was enacted more than 2 years
ago, Congress and the President have continued to provide
record teacher quality aid to states and local school districts
at levels far higher than provided prior enactment of the bill.
Federal teacher quality aid has been increased by more than 35
percent by this President, who requested nearly $3 billion in
annual teacher quality funding for states and teachers in his
'05 budget, compared with just about $787 million provided
under the previous Administration.
In addition, the President and Congress have taken numerous
steps since the enactment of No Child Left Behind to help
teachers, local education agencies and states meet the law's
highly qualified teacher provisions.
In 2003, the House, led by Representative Joe Wilson,
passed legislation to more than triple the amount of Federal
student loan forgiveness available to highly qualified reading
specialists, math teachers, science and special ed teachers who
commit to teaching in high need schools for 5 years.
Representative Wilson's legislation, the Teacher Recruitment
and Retention Act, would increase maximum Federal loan
forgiveness for such teachers from the current $5,000 per to
$17,500 per year.
And the House, led by Representative Phil Gingrey, a member
of our Committee, also passed legislation in 2003 to strengthen
teacher training programs at America's colleges. The Ready to
Teach Act would authorize and strengthen teacher training
programs under the Higher Education Act to ensure that
tomorrow's highly qualified teachers are prepared to meet the
needs of our nation's students.
To provide further incentives for good teachers to remain
in the teaching profession, President Bush and Members of
Congress in 2002 enacted legislation allowing teachers to take
a $250 tax deduction when they pay money out of their own
pockets for classroom expenses such as crayons and books. We're
currently working to expand the so-called ``Crayola credit'' to
$400 or more hopefully in an upcoming tax bill.
Recognizing that outdated Federal rules are pushing some
good teachers out of the classroom, the House last year passed
legislation authored by our Subcommittee Chairman, Mr. Castle,
to revamp the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
and reduce paperwork burdens for special ed teachers who are
striving to meet the No Child Left Behind standards. And the
bill includes a proposal originally introduced by Congressman
Ric Keller to reduce paperwork for special ed teachers by
allowing parents of children with special needs to select a 3-
year IEP for their children instead of an annual one, solely at
their discretion.
And last month, the Department of Education provided states
with new guidance on the highly qualified teacher requirements
giving additional flexibility to teachers in rural school
districts; streamlining procedures for veteran teachers to
demonstrate subject matter competency; and clarifying state
authority over requirements for science teachers.
Also, the Department today will announce a new outreach
initiative to recognize teachers' outstanding accomplishments.
The four-part initiative includes teacher roundtables, teacher-
to-teacher workshops, research-to-practice summit, and teacher
updates on the top topics affecting teachers in today's
classrooms.
So today, during the course of the hearing, we will examine
the need for the No Child Left Behind Act's highly qualified
teacher provisions; review the inherent flexibility under the
law; and learn more about the efforts to fundamentally upgrade
teaching as a profession and ensure that teachers have adequate
subject matter knowledge for the subjects they teach.
We've got a distinguished panel of witnesses today. I want
to thank all of them for being here and yield to my friend and
colleague from California, the Ranking Member of the Committee,
Mr. Miller.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Boehner follows:]
Statement of Hon. John A. Boehner, Chairman, Committee on Education and
the Workforce
Good morning. I'd like to welcome each of you to our hearing today
as the Committee continues its focus on implementation of the
bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act. Before I begin my opening
statement, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate Mrs. Kathy Mellor
for receiving this year's National Teacher of the Year award. Mrs.
Mellor, a Rhode Island middle school teacher, reshaped the English-as-
a-second-language program in her school district. I'd like to
congratulate the teachers who received this honor in their individual
states as well.
The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the importance of
highly qualified teachers in improving academic achievement for all
students--regardless of race, income, geography, English-fluency, or
disability.
The success of education reform efforts is increasingly seen as
directly dependent on the quality of classroom instruction, and
ensuring the quality of America's 3.2 million teachers is an essential
part of providing an excellent education to all our children. A growing
number of studies provide conclusive evidence that teacher quality is
the primary school-related factor affecting student achievement.
Students who are taught by effective and competent teachers excel
quickly, while those who are assigned to the least effective teachers
lag behind and often never catch up.
Especially troubling is the evidence that disadvantaged students,
whose futures depend most on a positive school experience, are often
assigned the least qualified teachers. For example, a report from one
of our witnesses today found that in every subject area, students in
high-poverty schools were more likely than other students to be taught
by teachers without even a minor in the subjects they teach.
The bipartisan No Child Left Behind law asks each state--in
exchange for billions of dollars in federal teacher quality aid--to
develop and implement a plan to place a highly qualified teacher in
every public classroom by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. States
have vast flexibility in defining what constitutes a highly qualified
teacher. At a minimum, teachers must have full state certification, a
Bachelor's degree, and demonstrate competency in core academic subjects
they teach. Individual states--not the federal government--design and
implement measures to assess subject matter competency, which may
include rigorous state academic tests; a Bachelor's degree in a core
academic subject; or the high, objective, uniform state standard of
evaluation--or HOUSE procedure--for veteran teachers.
Since No Child Left Behind was enacted more than two years ago,
Congress and President Bush have continued to provide record teacher
quality aid to states and local school districts, at levels far higher
than provided under President Clinton. Federal teacher quality aid has
been increased by more than 35 percent under President Bush, who
requested nearly three billion dollars in annual teacher quality
funding for states and teachers in his 2005 budget request to
Congress--compared with just $787 million provided under President
Clinton's final budget.
In addition, President Bush and Congress have taken numerous steps
since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act to help teachers,
local educational agencies, and states meet the law's highly qualified
teacher provisions.
In 2003, the House, led by Representative Joe Wilson, passed
legislation to more than triple the amount of federal student loan
forgiveness available to highly qualified reading specialists and math,
science, and special education teachers who commit to teaching in high-
need schools for five years. Representative Wilson's legislation, the
Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act, would increase maximum federal
loan forgiveness for such teachers from $5,000 to $17,500.
The House, led by Representative Phil Gingrey, also passed
legislation in 2003 to strengthen teacher-training programs at
America's colleges. The Ready to Teach Act would reauthorize and
strengthen teacher-training programs under the Higher Education Act to
ensure tomorrow's highly qualified teachers are prepared to meet the
needs of the nation's students.
To provide further incentives for good teachers to remain in the
teaching profession, President Bush and congressional Republicans in
2002 enacted legislation allowing teachers to take a $250 tax deduction
when they pay money out of their own pockets for classroom expenses,
such as crayons and books. Republicans are currently working to expand
this so called ``Crayola credit'' to $400 or more.
Recognizing that outdated federal rules are pushing some good
teachers out of the classroom, the House in 2003 passed legislation
sponsored by Representative Mike Castle to revamp the 1975 Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act and reduce paperwork burdens for
special education teachers, who are striving to meet No Child Left
Behind's high standards. The bill includes a proposal originally
introduced by Representative Ric Keller to reduce paperwork for special
education teachers by allowing parents of children with special needs
to select a three-year Individualized Education Program--or IEP--for
their children instead of an annual one.
Last month, the Department of Education provided states with new
guidance on the highly qualified teacher requirements giving additional
flexibility to teachers in rural school districts; streamlining
procedures for veteran teachers to demonstrate subject matter
competency; and clarifying state authority over requirements for
science teachers. Also, the Department of Education yesterday announced
a new outreach initiative to recognize teachers'' outstanding
achievements. The four-part initiative includes teacher roundtables,
teacher-to-teacher workshops, a research-to-practice summit, and
teacher updates on top topics affecting teachers.
During the course of today's hearing we will examine the need for
the No Child Left Behind Act's highly qualified teacher provisions;
review the inherent flexibility under the law; and learn about efforts
to fundamentally upgrade teaching as a profession and ensure teachers
have adequate subject matter knowledge for the subjects they teach.
We have a distinguished panel of witnesses for today's hearing. I
would like to thank you for your appearance before the Committee and I
look forward to your testimony.
______
STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MILLER, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON
EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have covered much
of what our hopes and aspirations are for this legislation, for
this hearing, and I'm going to ask unanimous consent to put my
remarks in the record, my written remarks into the record, and
just make a couple of comments.
One, I agree with much of what you have said. This hearing
for me is very exciting. A number of years ago, I offered an
amendment that succeeded in Committee that said we would have a
qualified teacher in every classroom. And when it got to the
floor, I lost that vote 434 to 1. And we've come a long time
since that vote where it is now the law that we will have a
qualified teacher in every classroom. And this morning we're
having a hearing about what we can do to support that idea in
the law, how we can improve upon it. And there is now general
recognition, as you have pointed out, that the single most
important factor that we have in student achievement is the
ability and the talent and the qualifications of that teacher.
And having recognized that, and to now continue the poor
distribution of highly qualified teachers is something that we
can no longer accept, because we have knowledge of the
detriment to our children of doing that, and we now must make
every effort to support getting all of our teachers to the
level of professional development so they can meet the mandate
of the state law.
I do differ with you on a couple of points. I do not
believe that we have provided the adequate funding to do this,
and it's a point that I would like to raise later with the
panel on the manner in which we have provided the funding where
maybe we can get some help with the funding that we have
already provided. And I am also concerned that the
Administration has not been helpful in implementing the so-
called HOUSSE process for experienced teachers, and that we've
got to make sure that we do not drive these individuals from
the field in a premature fashion.
So I look forward to the testimony of the panel. I think
you've assembled a great panel, and thank you very much for
holding this hearing.
Chairman Boehner. Let's now introduce all of our witnesses.
Our first witness today, Ms. Gaynor McCown. Ms. McCown is
currently the Executive Director of The Teaching Commission, an
organization dedicated to keeping the best and brightest in the
teaching profession, and to placing a highly qualified teacher
in every classroom.
Prior to her current position, Ms. McCown served as a
Senior Vice President at Edison Schools, and earlier as the
Senior Vice President for Education and Workforce Development
at the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce.
She has classroom and policy experience, having both taught
in public high school in New York City and having served in the
Clinton White House as a senior policy analyst and adviser and
special assistant to the Secretary of Education, Richard Riley.
Now with that, let me yield to Mr. Holt for the
introduction of our second witness.
Mr. Holt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And on behalf of the
Committee, I'm pleased to recognize and welcome Kurt Landgraf,
who is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the
Educational Testing Service, as he has been for the past three-
and-a-half years.
I think everyone on the Committee recognizes the leadership
role of ETS as the world's largest private educational testing
and measurement organization and a leader in the true sense--
that's a word that's been overused--but a leader in educational
research with the organization developing and administering
millions of tests worldwide.
Mr. Landgraf comes with a bachelor's degree in economics
and three master's degrees, and I will ask to put the details
or some of the details of his distinguished biography in the
record.
I would like to call attention to a few things, though,
from his background. He's worked in the pharmaceutical
industry, but he's also throughout his career been an
instructor in sociology and labor relations and was President
of the National Consortium on Graduate Studies for Minorities
in Sciences and Engineering, the GEM program, an important
program, and I think it says a lot about Mr. Landgraf's
orientation.
He's published articles on topics such as minority access
to higher education. He's focused a great deal of his attention
on teacher quality and certification, you know, what do we mean
by teacher quality? How can we know a qualified teacher when
see one, and how can we make more of them?
He's paid a great deal of attention to technology in the
classroom and is, along with ETS, committed to making No Child
Left Behind work. Today I think he'll be talking to us about
the need for standards as well as the need for mentoring and
induction and emphasis on both methods and content for making a
good teacher.
And finally, and the reason I particularly wanted to
introduce him, since he comes from my district, I wanted to
point out what a good neighbor ETS is to the people of central
New Jersey, what a civic leader the organization is and the
members of the organization are in the local communities in
central New Jersey. And we all appreciate that very much.
Mr. Boehner. Our third witness today will be Mr. Ross
Wiener. Since July of 2002, Mr. Wiener has been the Principal
Partner and Policy Director at The Education Trust, a national
organization focused on eliminating the achievement gaps in
public education, and someone I would add for all of our
Members, someone who has worked with both sides of the aisle
and been a great resource to this Committee.
Prior to his position at The Education Trust, Mr. Wiener
worked in the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of
Justice as a trial attorney handling educational opportunities
cases. And while working there, Mr. Wiener twice received the
Civil Rights Division's Special Achievement Award.
He also has earlier experience working for the United
States Court of Appeals in the First District, the Office of
the Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, and
the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.
Welcome.
Then we will hear from Ms. Eileen Mitchell. Ms. Mitchell is
a fifth grade teacher, a math specialist, at Public School 31,
the William T. Davis School, located in Staten Island, New
York. She has been teaching at the school for 9 years and also
coaches high school track for the district. Ms. Mitchell earned
her undergraduate degree and master's degree from Staten Island
College.
And then we will hear from Mr. Tracey Bailey. Mr. Bailey is
currently the Director of National Projects with the
Association of American Educators, a professional association
which assists teachers with professional development and with
issues in the classroom. Mr. Bailey recently served as a member
of the U.S. Department of Education's Teacher Assistance Corps,
a group of educators assigned with assisting states in
understanding and implementing the highly qualified teacher
provisions in No Child Left Behind.
In 1993, he had the honor of being selected as National
Teacher of the Year. In addition to being a science teacher,
Mr. Bailey has overseen the Florida charter school program and
has served as the Teacher Liaison and State Coordinator for the
Florida Department of Education.
For all of you who have not testified, the lights in front
of you will be green for 4 minutes, yellow for a minute, and
then red. That means you should be somewhere close to being
finished, but we're pretty easy here, so.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Boehner. We're more interested in what you have to
say than worried about the lights.
So with that, Ms. McCown, you can begin.
STATEMENT OF R. GAYNOR McCOWN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE TEACHING
COMMISSION, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Ms. McCown. Thank you. On behalf of The Teaching
Commission, I want to thank Chairman Boehner for inviting me
here today. I'm honored to have the opportunity to speak before
you and the rest of the Committee. The Teaching Commission was
established by Lou Gerstner, who is a former chairman of IBM.
It is a nonpartisan group of business executives, former
Governors, a teachers union president, and leaders in
philanthropy and education.
The goal of The Teaching Commission is to fundamentally
upgrade the quality of teaching in the United States by
changing the way that teachers are trained, assessed, supported
and compensated.
The Commission's report holds that quality teachers are the
critical factor in helping young people overcome the damaging
effects of poverty, lack of parental guidance and other
challenges. The effectiveness of any broader education reform,
including standards, smaller schools and choice, in our view is
ultimately dependent on teachers in the classroom.
The United States has entered the 21st century as an
undisputed world leader. That's the good news. The bad news is
that the Nation will not continue to lead if we persist in
viewing teaching, the profession that makes all other
professions possible, as a second-rate occupation.
Top quality teaching fosters high student achievement. High
achievers can harness their talents and energies to become
successful contributing citizens. Nothing is more vital to our
future than ensuring that we attract and retain the best
teachers in our public schools.
As Kati Haycock, the Director of The Education Trust,
points out, ``A decade ago...we believed that what students
learned was largely a factor of their family income or parental
education, not of what schools did. But recent research has
turned that research upside down. What schools do matters
enormously, and what matters most is good teaching.''
In a study led by Eric Hanushek of Stanford University's
Hoover Institution, the most effective teachers were found to
boost their pupils' learning by a full grade more than students
taught by their less successful colleagues. Similarly, a study
of Tennessee students by William Sanders and June Rivers
reveals that the chances for fourth graders in the bottom
quartile of performance to pass the state's high-stakes exit
exam were less than 15 percent if the students had a series of
poor teachers. And I know that many of you know this, but it
happens that children who are in poor areas and in urban areas
have more than their fair share of poor teachers.
The proven value of excellent teaching, in other words, all
but demolishes the idea that socioeconomic status is the most
important determinant of what kids learn.
Many teachers are working incredibly hard to succeed, but
their effectiveness is often undermined by inadequate, one-
size-fits-all compensation, flawed preparation, ineffective
leadership and poor working conditions.
The nation, as you all know, has moved forward to set
standards for what students must know and to hold schools and
young people accountable for student performance. But how can
we hold students accountable for performance unless they have
the teachers they need in order to succeed?
We say that quality teaching matters, but we treat quality
teachers as if they don't.
In an attempt to remedy these problems, the Commission has
put forth four recommendations, and I'd like to go over those
briefly.
One is compensating teachers more effectively. Money does
matter. All we have to do is look at the countless teacher
surveys and the large numbers of teachers who flock to affluent
suburbs where pay is significantly better than in urban
schools.
The Teaching Commission also understands, however, that
simply raising salaries for all teachers will not in and of
itself raise student achievement. Therefore, in calling for an
increase in base compensation, The Teaching Commission also
urges a far-reaching break with tradition: a salary scheme that
is also commensurate with excellence. That is, paying teachers
more for high performance, as measured by fair evaluations and
clear evidence of improved student learning.
The Commission recommends that some version of value-added,
a method used to measure gains in student performance,
including student achievement, be used to move in this
direction.
Further, district schools and unions should agree to
establish career advancement paths that offer teachers
increasing levels of responsibility and compensation as their
skills and effectiveness grow.
And then finally, the Commission thinks that there should
be differentiated pay for individuals who teach subjects that
are hard to find individuals to teach, like math and science,
and also individuals who choose to go into hard-to-serve areas.
The second main recommendation that the Commission has put
forth is bolstering accountability in teacher education.
College and university presidents must revamp their teacher
education programs and make teacher quality a top priority.
The Commission also recommends that the Federal Government
be prepared to withhold funds from colleges and universities
that fail to show the effectiveness of their teacher
recruitment and preparation programs.
The third, strengthening state teacher licensing and
certification requirements. States must improve or overhaul
their licensing and certification requirements. The Teaching
Commission calls on Governors and state education departments
to ensure that every individual who wants to become a teacher
passes a rigorous test of both content and essential skills. At
a minimum, this will require raising the passing score on
existing certification exams. The Commission also calls for
streamlining the process.
I haven't set a very good example here, but I'm going to be
done in just a second. Empowering school leaders as CEOs is our
final recommendation, and that is that principals should have
the ultimate authority to decide who teaches in his or her
school. But with that authority they should also be held
accountable--and I know some of my other colleagues will talk
about this--for mentoring and induction programs, and the
Commission believes that is very important that those
responsibilities be devolved to the school.
In closing, The Teaching Commission is not going measure it
success based on these recommendations that are included in
this report. What we hope to measure our success on is the
effectiveness of bringing these ideas to the Federal, state and
local levels.
Finally, I want to just leave you with a quote from Lou
Gerstner: ``If we don't step up to this challenge of finding
and supporting the best teachers, we'll undermine everything
else we're trying to do to improve our schools. That's a
conscious decision that would threaten our economic strength,
political fabric and stability as a nation. It's exactly that
clear cut.''
Again, Chairman Boehner, thank you very much for having me
here today, and thank you to the rest of the Committee.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McCown follows:]
Statement of R. Gaynor McCown, Executive Director, The Teaching
Commission
On behalf of The Teaching Commission, I want to thank Chairman
Boehner for inviting me here today. I am honored to have the
opportunity to discuss Teaching at Risk: A Call to Action, the report
released by The Teaching Commission on January 14th 2004.
The Teaching Commission, established by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., the
retired Chairman of IBM, is a non-partisan group of business
executives, former governors, a teachers-union president, and leaders
in philanthropy and education. Our members include: Ken Chenault,
Chairman and CEO of American Express; Sandra Feldman, President of the
American Federation of Teachers; Former Governors Roy Barnes; James
Hunt; Frank Keating and Richard Riley; Beverly Hall, Superintendent of
the Atlanta Public Schools; Scott Painter, High School Physics Teacher
and Teacher of the Year in Atlanta; Barbara Bush and Vartan Gregorian,
President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The goal of The Commission is to fundamentally upgrade the quality
of teaching in the United States by changing the way that teachers are
trained, assessed, supported, and compensated.
The Commission's report holds that quality teachers are the
critical factor in helping young people overcome the damaging effects
of poverty, lack of parental guidance, and other challenges. The
effectiveness of any broader education reform--including standards,
smaller schools, and choice--is ultimately dependent on the quality of
teachers in the classroom.
The United States has entered the 21st century as an undisputed
world leader.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that the nation will not continue to lead if we
persist in viewing teaching--the profession that makes all other
professions possible--as a second-rate occupation.
Top-quality teaching fosters high student achievement--and high
achievers can harness their talents and energies to become successful,
contributing citizens. Nothing is more vital to our future than
ensuring that we attract and retain the best teachers in our public
schools.
As Kati Haycock, Director of The Education Trust, points out, ``A
decade ago...we believed that what students learned was largely a
factor of their family income or parental education, not of what
schools did. But recent research has turned these assumptions upside
down. What schools do matters enormously. And what matters most is good
teaching.''
In a study led by Eric Hanushek of Stanford University's Hoover
Institution, the most effective teachers were found to boost their
pupils'' learning by a full grade more than students taught by their
least successful colleagues. Replacing an average teacher with a very
good one, Hanushek and his coauthors concluded, nearly erased the gap
in math performance between students from low-income and high-income
households.
Similarly, a study of Tennessee students by William Sanders and
June Rivers reveals that the chances for fourth-graders in the bottom
quartile of performance to pass the state's high-stakes exit exam in
ninth grade were less than 15 percent if the students had a series of
poor teachers. But the chances for students from the same background
who had a series of good teachers were four times as great, or 60
percent.
The proven value of excellent teaching, in other words, all but
demolishes the notion that socioeconomic status is the most important
determinant of what kids can learn.
Many teachers are working incredibly hard to help children succeed.
But their effectiveness is often undermined by inadequate, one-size-
fits-all compensation, flawed teacher preparation, ineffective
leadership, and poor working conditions.
These systemic problems prevent teachers from achieving their goals
and mire educators and their students in the quicksand of the status
quo.
Our methods of teacher preparation and licensure are often marked
by low standards, while teacher induction is too haphazard to ensure
that new teachers have the knowledge, skills, clinical experience, and
support they need to succeed. Universities often derive considerable
income from teacher preparation and professional development programs
without providing the ongoing help that novice and experienced teachers
need.
Meanwhile, low, lockstep pay undermines the prestige of the
profession and the ability to renew and replenish the field. Cumbersome
and constantly delayed school hiring practices in our largest cities
scare off the best applicants. Equally significant, principals and
teacher leaders rarely get a chance to work together to build the
instructional teams that schools need to reach challenging academic
goals.
The nation has moved forward to set higher standards for what
students must know and to hold schools and young people accountable for
performance. But how can we hold students accountable for results
unless they have the teachers they need in order to help them meet
these standards?
Our current education system has few ways to build on teacher
success or to use teacher evaluation and compensation in ways that will
improve student performance.
Effective teachers who dramatically raise student achievement and
who make other teachers better through their knowledge, leadership, and
skills are treated exactly the same as those who make no positive
difference in their classrooms.
We say quality teaching matters, but we treat quality teachers as
if they don't.
In an attempt to remedy these problems, The Teaching Commission
offers four closely linked recommendations that would help to ensure
the resources, training, leadership and support that teachers need to
be successful in helping students achieve.
Specifically, the plan included in The Teaching Commission report
includes:
1. Compensating Teachers More Effectively. Money does matter! All
we have to do is look at the countless teacher surveys and the large
numbers of teachers who flock to affluent suburbs where pay is
significantly better than in urban public schools. Simply put,
broadening and strengthening the pool of people who are attracted to
and remain in teaching will require paying salaries that come closer to
what talented college graduates can earn in other professions.
The Teaching Commission also understands, however, that simply
raising salaries for all teachers will not, by itself, raise student
achievement. Therefore, while calling for an increase in base
compensation, The Teaching Commission urges a far-reaching break with
tradition: a salary scheme that is commensurate with excellence. That
is, paying teachers more for high performance, as measured by fair
evaluations and clear evidence of improved student learning.
While the specific details of any compensation system are best
determined by individual states, districts, and schools, The Teaching
Commission believes that all performance incentives should be large
enough to influence behavior. The pay-for-performance system also must
provide frequent and comprehensive individual teacher evaluations,
including assessments of student achievement and other teacher skills,
such as lesson planning and classroom instruction and management.
The Commission recommends that some version of the ``value-
added'' method be used to measure gains in student performance and that
additional compensation for individual teachers be ultimately based on
performance, including student achievement. However, districts or
states may want to use a team approach that rewards all teachers in a
specific subject matter, grade, or school for overall gains in student
achievement.
Further, districts, schools, and unions should agree to
establish career-advancement paths that offer teachers increasing
levels of responsibility and compensation as their skills and
effectiveness grow. Teachers who serve as mentor or master teachers
would be required to demonstrate highly accomplished teaching,
including continued improvement in student performance, in order to
maintain their positions.
2. Bolstering Accountability in Teacher Education. Colleges and
university presidents must revamp their teacher education programs and
make teacher quality a top priority. The Teaching Commission calls on
the presidents of all American colleges and universities to make a
personal and institutional commitment, including resources, to tackle
the problem of unskilled teachers.
Ensuring that the best and brightest college graduates are
encouraged to teach in public schools--and that they receive high-
quality academic training--must be among the top priorities of college
and university presidents. That means raising standards for entry into
teacher preparation programs, beefing up the academic content of those
programs while ensuring a connection to real practice, and promoting
teaching as an exemplary career path for new graduates who wish to
become engaged citizens. And it means measuring results in order to
ensure that teacher education programs are doing their job.
The Commission also recommends that the federal government
should be prepared to withhold funds from colleges and universities
that fail to show the effectiveness of their teacher-recruitment and
preparation programs.
3. Strengthening State Teacher Licensing and Certification
Requirements. States must improve--or overhaul--their licensing and
certification requirements. The Teaching Commission calls on governors
and state education departments to ensure that every individual who
wants to become a teacher passes a rigorous test for both content and
essential skills. At a minimum, this will require raising the passing
score on existing certification exams. It should also entail replacing
low-level basic competency tests with challenging exams that measure
verbal ability and content knowledge at an appropriately high level. In
addition, states need to streamline the cumbersome bureaucracy that
often surrounds teacher licensure in order to make the profession more
attractive to a wide range of qualified candidates.
4. Empowering School Leaders as CEOs. School districts need to
give principals ultimate say over personnel decisions, while principals
must provide teachers with mentoring and ongoing professional
development known to improve classroom instruction. We call on
superintendents to ensure that school principals are given the
authority they need to provide leadership through a coherent academic
program and the fostering of teaching excellence. Using fair and
agreed-upon measures of performance, every principal should be given
the responsibility and authority to hire, fire, and promote teachers.
Principals should also be held responsible for ensuring that new
teachers receive structured mentoring, and that all teachers benefit
from scientifically based professional development opportunities that
focus squarely on assessing and improving instructional practices and
thereby raising student achievement. To ensure the effectiveness of
this support, principals should create school environments that
encourage teachers to get directly involved in decision making in these
areas.
In a study conducted for The Teaching Commission, economist Eric
Hanushek points out that investing in teaching to address student
achievement problems will go a long way toward paying for itself.
Hanushek estimates that significant improvements in education over a
20-year period could lead to as much as a 4 percent addition to the
Gross Domestic Product. In today's terms, that would be over $400
billion, an amount that rivals total current expenditure on K-12 public
education.
In closing, The Teaching Commission will not measure its success by
what it recommends. Its effectiveness will be determined by its ability
to bring these ideas to life at the federal, state, and local levels.
The Commission is in the process of building partnerships with
states, education organizations, policy groups, and college leaders to
implement its agenda. The Commission is also working on a
communications and outreach campaign at the national, state, and local
levels to build political will and encourage support for our
recommendations.
Finally, I'd like to leave you with a quote from Lou Gerstner,
Chairman of The Teaching Commission: ``If we don't step up to this
challenge of finding and supporting the best teachers, we'll undermine
everything else we're trying to do to improve our schools. That's a
conscious decision that would threaten our economic strength, political
fabric and stability as a nation. It's exactly that clear cut.''
Again, I want to thank Chairman Boehner and the members of The
Committee on Education and the Workforce for inviting me here today. I
appreciate your taking the time to hear about the work of The Teaching
Commission. I would be delighted to take any questions you might have.
______
Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Ms. McCown.
Mr. Landgraf, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF KURT M. LANDGRAF, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, EDUCATIONAL TESTING SERVICE
Mr. Landgraf. Thank you, Chairman Boehner. I appreciate it.
And Congressman Miller, thank you for the leadership--
Mr. Boehner. You might want to hit your button.
Mr. Landgraf. Thank you very much for inviting me here
today, and Congressman, thank you very much for the leadership
you both have shown in implementing No Child Left Behind,
probably the most important educational initiative in the last
200 years.
Congressman Holt, who has left, I appreciate his
introduction. As we say in central New Jersey, we're proud of
Congressman Holt as our congressman, because he is in fact a
rocket scientist.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Landgraf. And to Congressman Castle, who was my long-
time congressman when I was COO of DuPont. I just wanted to
thank him for being here today.
I'm here today to talk about No Child Left Behind and
teacher certification. Let me be very blunt. This is one of the
most extraordinary opportunities in domestic educational policy
that this country has ever had. It's an outstanding initiative,
but it will fail if we do not put the resources and talent
required in the certification place to ensure at a bottom line
all children get a qualified, knowledgeable teacher who
understands their subject matter and understands how to relate
to children.
It's a very simplistic equation. No matter what else this
Congress does, unless we ensure that all children get qualified
teachers who understand subject matter, we will not improve
teacher--we will not improve achievement in the school systems,
and most importantly, we will not make measurable progress in
reducing the achievement gap that we see so sadly with our
lowest socioeconomic status cohorts.
I want to make four recommendations:
States should reevaluate their teacher licensure programs
and begin raising their entry standards. It is essential in our
view that teachers have rigorous, meaningful entry standards
into the profession.
All states should establish induction programs for
beginning teachers. Providing mentoring and support during the
first years of teaching are essential. The profession of
teaching is not one where we can afford to have long-term
training programs to bring people up to excellence. Each kid
each year has a teacher that makes a difference in their lives.
Our nation must deploy continuous, high quality
professional development programs to develop and maintain high
quality teachers.
We must place greater emphasis on observing and evaluating
teacher skills and content knowledge in their actual classrooms
throughout the courses of their career.
As I said, nothing in our view is more important than a
highly qualified, highly motivated, highly compensated teacher
in the complex matrix of education.
ETS will release an issue paper, ``Where We Stand on
Teacher Quality.'' We've made copies available to this
Committee and also available for anyone else who would like to
take a look at this.
We believe that skilled teachers possess four types of
knowledge and skill:
Basic academic reading, writing and math.
Thorough knowledge of the content of each subject they
teach.
Both generic and content-specific knowledge about how to
teach; and
Hands-on ability and skill to use this knowledge to engage
students in learning and the master of curriculum.
ETS, as has been discussed, is a leader in educational
policy research with over 50 years of experience looking at the
educational matrix. The conclusions we reach today come from
that research.
We also provide a series of products. Most notably for
members of this Commission, we are the company that provides
the assessment tool called Praxis, which is used in 39 states
as the certification tool for entry level teachers. We also
provide a series of products and services to prepare teachers
to take the Praxis exam.
ETS is working on several fronts to raise the standards for
entering the profession. Most notably, I believe, we are
cooperating with the National Center for Accreditation of
Teacher Education (NCATE), to establish a professionally
recognized and defensible range of common passing scores on
selected Praxis content knowledge tests. This will make
institutional accreditation decisions comparable state-to-state
while recognizing that the demand and supply for teachers is
different in each locale.
National benchmarks defined by the teaching profession will
enable more equitable accreditation decisions and help increase
the quality of teacher preparation programs.
To further that end, ETS now has a recognition of
excellence award, where we provide to those candidates who earn
high scores in any of our 11 Praxis tests, they will receive a
certificate from ETS identifying that excellence, and also that
will be reported on their Praxis report score out.
We have Praxis assessment development guides that we
provide to allow teachers a chance to do well on our
assessments. We have a diagnostic preparation program, and ETS
importantly supports the concept of alternative roots to
teaching. This is to encourage talented candidates to enter the
field of teaching sometimes mid-career.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to offer the Committee some policy
recommendations for improving teacher quality that have emerged
from the work we are doing at ETS:
States should reevaluate their systems of teacher
licensure.
States should establish induction programs to ensure that
new teachers are given appropriate mentoring.
States must deploy high quality professional development
programs. It's not enough to hire the best. We must develop
them as we do in all other sectors of our society. And we must
place greater emphasis on teacher teaching skills. It's not
enough just to have outstanding concept knowledge and content
knowledge. You must be able to teach in a real live classroom.
In closing, let me thank you for being invited today, Mr.
Chairman. It's a pleasure for ETS to be part of your
discussions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Landgraf follows:]
Statement of Kurt M. Landgraf, President and Chief Executive Officer,
Educational Testing Service
Good morning, Chairman Boehner and members of the committee. I am
Kurt Landgraf, President and Chief Executive Officer of Educational
Testing Service. ETS is the world's largest private educational testing
and measurement organization and a leader in education research. The
company is dedicated to serving the needs of individuals, educational
institutions, and government bodies in almost 200 countries. My
testimony today addresses the central role of teacher quality in our
education system.
Mr. Chairman, teacher quality is a key element of the No Child Left
Behind Act, and it is central to our national objective of improving
student achievement and reducing the achievement gap. As I have said
before, the goals of the law--raising achievement, closing the
achievement gap and improving accountability--are the right ones. I
want to thank both Chairman Boehner and Congressman Miller for your
strong leadership in education reform, including your keen interest in
improving the quality of teachers in our nation's schools. Working
together we can succeed, and ETS stands ready to help.
Today, I want to share our views on teacher quality and make four
recommendations to promote quality in the nation's teacher workforce:
States should re-evaluate their teacher licensure
programs and begin raising their entry standards, including the passing
scores required on licensure exams. ETS pledges to work with states to
reduce differences in passing scores on Praxis tests across states.
All states should establish induction programs for
beginning teachers, providing mentoring and support during the first
years of teaching.
Our nation must deploy continuous, high-quality
professional development programs to develop and maintain high-quality
teachers.
We must place greater emphasis on observing and
evaluating teachers'' teaching skills and content knowledge in their
actual classrooms throughout the course of their careers.
Improving teacher quality is at the core of the work of ETS. For
over 50 years we have been striving to elevate the level of teaching in
our nation's schools. We continue to develop teacher, administrator and
paraprofessional assessments, produce related professional development
products and services, and conduct program and policy research on
education personnel and practices.
Today ETS will release a position paper entitled Where We Stand on
Teacher Quality, copies of which we have made available to members of
the committee. It is the first in a series of issue papers from ETS on
improving the quality of the teacher workforce in the United States.
This first paper addresses aspects of teacher quality that we believe
are fundamental. In the coming months, we will publish papers on
specific topics related to teacher quality that warrant further
examination.
Teaching Quality Determines Education Quality
Mr. Chairman, the quality of teaching determines the quality of
education. And so we believe that the standards for those who pursue
this important profession must be high and they must be rigorous--so
our children are prepared as responsible citizens of a democracy and
productive contributors to a competitive, global economy. Americans
support improving the quality of teaching, and, according to the ETS-
sponsored 2002 survey by Peter D. Hart-Robert M. Teeter, A National
Priority: Americans Speak on Teacher Quality, they view improving the
nation's schools and improving teacher quality as synonymous.
Defining Teacher Quality. We know that good teachers produce good
students. This is the bottom line for effective teachers: their ability
to improve student learning. Knowing one's subject, knowing how to
teach it, and actually being able to teach it are fundamental. In fact,
we suggest that competent, skilled teachers should possess the
following four types of knowledge and skill:
1. Basic academic reading, writing and math.
2. Thorough knowledge of the content of each subject taught,
appropriate to the levels of their students.
3. Both generic and content-specific knowledge in areas such as
child development; classroom management; motivating children to learn;
interpreting and using assessment data; individualizing instruction;
aligning content to the state's standards; developing appropriate
instructional materials; and working with children with disabilities or
from other cultures.
4. Hands-on ability and skill to use the above types of knowledge
to engage students in learning and mastery of the curriculum.
ETS's Roles in Improving Teacher Quality
Research. ETS conducts a great deal of policy research. Since 1999,
we have published five policy research reports on different aspects of
teaching. (See Appendix.) Our long-term teacher quality agenda focuses
on understanding the role of teacher quality in closing the student
achievement gap. Specifically, for the next three years we will
undertake a systematic investigation of the depth and breadth of
teacher attrition and teacher quality in hard-to-staff schools,
including consideration of the most effective district and state
policies for recruiting and retaining math and science teachers in
those schools. We will also examine the use of value-added models as
measures of teacher quality. This research will be helpful in finding
solutions to the persistent teacher-quality gap.
As we move forward on this extensive research, we would very much
welcome input from you, Mr. Chairman, and other members of this
committee, to ensure that the questions we are asking are useful and
relevant to the most important teacher quality issues facing this
nation.
Products and Services to Enhance Learning. ETS also develops a
number of products and services to help improve teacher quality. These
include the Praxis Series: Professional Assessments for Beginning
Teachers; the Parapro Assessment for paraprofessionals; assessments of
accomplished teaching; the School Leaders Licensure Assessment; and the
School Superintendent Assessments. In recognition of the importance of
professional development throughout teachers'' careers, we developed
the Pathwise series of professional development materials, workshops,
training sessions, software, and mini-courses for teachers. We are also
working with a number of states, including California, providing
induction programs for teachers during their first years in the
classroom.
The Praxis Series can play a crucial role in helping the nation
move toward the NCLBA goal of a ``highly qualified teacher'' in every
classroom. It is a system of rigorous and carefully validated
assessments that generate accurate, reliable information for use in
licensing decisions. Praxis tests are aligned with and reflect current
K-12 and teacher preparation standards issued by national discipline-
based associations. Offered in all the content fields covered by state
teacher licenses, Praxis assessments are designed to evaluate each
teacher candidate's basic academic skills, subject knowledge,
pedagogical knowledge, and classroom performance.
Promoting Quality Across the Continuum. It is important to address
teacher quality across the continuum of teaching--from preparation
through professional development and performance evaluation. ETS is
involved in several key initiatives to help prepare, license and
support teachers throughout their profession. These are described
below.
Raising Standards. ETS is cooperating with the National
Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) to
establish a professionally recognized and defensible range of
common passing scores on selected Praxis content knowledge
tests. Doing so will help make institutional accreditation
decisions compatible from state to state, while recognizing
local demand for and supply of teachers. National benchmarks,
defined by the teaching profession, will enable more equitable
accreditation decision making and will help to increase the
quality of teacher preparation programs.
Recognizing Excellence. ETS is working on several fronts to
help districts, states, education leaders and policy-makers
raise the standards for those entering the profession. Our new
Recognition of Excellence program, similar to a college honors
diploma, recognizes and encourages exceptional individual
performance on select Praxis II tests. Candidates who earn very
high scores--in the top 15 percent of test takers--on any of 11
Praxis II tests will receive a certificate from ETS, and their
award will be noted on all Praxis score reports.
Helping Candidates Succeed. To help teacher candidates
prepare for Praxis assessments, ETS has written and by July
2004 will have published learning guides for 27 of the subjects
we test. Each guide presents a diagram of the critical
foundations of the content domain of each test. Our new Praxis
Diagnostic Preparation Program provides detailed, customized
feedback about candidates'' performance so they may better
understand their strengths and weaknesses and focus their test
preparation efforts accordingly.
Expediting Entry. ETS supports the concept of alternative
routes to teaching in order to encourage talented candidates to
the field, for instance, by reducing unnecessary barriers or
expediting the licensing process. While the relative weight
assigned to each of the three essential components of teacher
licensure--education, experience and examination--may change in
order to open the door to prospective teachers, all three
components are needed. We believe that states should prescribe
a uniform licensure standard for all candidates--a standard
aligned to the state's student content standards and to the
knowledge and skill requirements the state has defined for
teaching various subject areas and grade levels.
Recommendations for Improving Teacher Quality
Licensure Reform. ETS believes that licensure reform offers great
potential to enhance the quality of teaching across the country.
Because state practices and policies vary considerably, a uniform
national standard does not exist. Here are some proposals:
Raising the Bar. States should re-evaluate their existing
teacher licensure programs and begin raising the standards for
entering the profession. Specifically, as The Teaching
Commission advised in its report, Teaching at Risk, ``states
should agree on a common national standard for subject-area
tests and set cutoff scores at a level that requires teaching
candidates to demonstrate mastery reflecting at least two years
of undergraduate study.''
Uniformity, Comparability and Portability. The Praxis Series
is a national program, with the same tests provided to all
states that use them; only the variation in passing scores
precludes comparability. Uniform passing scores would enhance
portability of scores, and thus candidate mobility and
reciprocity across states. We are working with an exciting
model for the future: the Mid-Atlantic Regional Teachers
Project, a regional collaboration to develop full regional
licensure reciprocity, new-teacher mentoring programs, common
regional standards for alternative certification, regional
pension portability, and a new regional designation of
``Meritorious New Teachers.''
Streamlining the Process. We agree with calls to streamline
the cumbersome bureaucracy that often surrounds teacher
licensure in order to make the profession more attractive to a
wide range of qualified candidates, as recommended in Teaching
at Risk. ETS is collaborating with Teach for America, offering
Praxis tests at convenient times to help accelerate TFA
candidates'' entry to the classroom. Further, we are offering
flexibility in the Praxis registration process to accommodate
teachers recruited by The New Teacher Project.
Induction and Mentoring. ETS urges all states to establish
induction programs for beginning teachers to provide them with
mentoring and other support during the crucial first years of teaching.
Research shows that teachers without such support leave the profession
at rates almost 70 percent higher than those who receive it. With about
one-third of new teachers leaving the classroom within three years and
nearly one-half within five years, failing to provide induction is
irresponsible. Yet, only 15 states both require and finance mentoring
programs for all novice teachers, despite the availability of federal
funds for this purpose.
Ongoing Professional Development. Continuous professional
development is critical to developing and maintaining high-quality
teachers. Data show that without highly skilled support, even those
with high qualifications will not remain in the profession long. Each
of the ETS Pathwise products for professional development is designed
to improve teacher and school leader performance and is grounded in
what research studies define as ``best practice.''
Teacher Performance Evaluation. Evaluations of teachers''
performance in the classroom occur at many points on the teaching
continuum, at various times throughout a school year, and for a variety
of purposes. ETS believes that teachers'' teaching skills and content
knowledge should be routinely observed in the classroom and evaluated
throughout their careers. Unfortunately, performance evaluation is
frequently a missing element of teacher development planning, even
though when used to assist fledgling candidates it can mean the
difference between leaving and staying. We urge that high-quality
performance evaluations be required as a part of licensure and in the
concept of states'' High and Objective Uniform State Standard of
Evaluation. We support The Teaching Commission's recommendations for
individual teacher evaluations for performance pay-determinations. As
the commission states, such evaluations ``should occur frequently and
be comprehensive, including assessments of student achievement and
other teacher skills, such as lesson planning and classroom instruction
and management.''
Conclusion
ETS stands ready to work with policy-makers and practitioners to
improve teacher quality and student achievement. From our perspective,
strong content knowledge and knowing how to teach are both essential
qualifications that beginning teachers must have to enter the
classroom. We believe that teachers who meet high qualifications for
entering the profession can grow and improve their practice as they
progress in the profession. We recommend that states work together to
achieve more commonality and comparability in qualifications for those
entering and staying in this important profession. In addition:
States should re-evaluate their teacher licensure
programs and begin raising their entry standards, including the passing
scores required on licensure exams. ETS pledges to work with states on
efforts to reduce differences in passing scores on Praxis tests across
states.
All states should establish induction programs for
beginning teachers, providing mentoring and support during the first
years of teaching.
Our nation must deploy continuous, high-quality
professional development to develop and retain high-quality teachers.
We should place greater emphasis on observing and
evaluating teachers'' teaching skills and content knowledge in their
actual classrooms throughout the course of their careers.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to present ETS's views.
I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.
APPENDIX
ETS Research on Teacher Quality
ETS has produced five policy research reports on different aspects
of teaching since 1999. A brief overview of each of these reports
follows.
Preparing Teachers Around The World compares and contrasts teacher
education and certification policies in the United States with those in
Australia, England, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and
Singapore. Students in those countries performed as well as or better
than students from the United States in an international assessment of
mathematics and science. The study presents the idea of filters, or
points, along the teacher pipeline where people might be forced to exit
the profession. Some filters that have come under attack in the United
States--such as teacher education programs and tenure--are accepted and
universal practices in some countries. Those same countries have more
rigorous entry requirements for teacher education programs than are
generally found in U.S. programs. And while much has been made in this
country about deregulating teaching as a means of improving the
teaching force, every high-performing country in this study employs
significant regulatory controls on its teachers, almost all more
rigorous than what is found in the United States.
In How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back Into
Discussions About Teacher Quality, ETS researchers explored the
possible influence of classroom practices on student achievement in
mathematics and science. The study found that while teacher inputs,
professional development, and classroom practices all influence student
achievement, the greatest role is played by classroom practices,
followed by professional development that is tailored to those
classroom practices most conducive to the high academic performance of
students.
The effectiveness of institutions that prepare teachers was
explored in Teaching the Teachers: Different Settings, Different
Results. The study found that five characteristics of institutions and
programs were conducive to higher teacher licensure scores: 1) private
institutions outperformed public ones; 2) universities outperformed
colleges; 3) teacher education programs with a higher number of
traditional students outperformed those with fewer such students; 4)
teacher education programs with ethnically diverse faculties
outperformed those with overwhelmingly White faculties; 5) institutions
with large proportions of education majors and minors and large
proportions of their budgets devoted to teacher preparation performed
worse than those with small proportions of education majors and minors
and small proportions of their budgets devoted to teacher education.
In How Teachers Compare: The Prose Document and Quantitative Skills
of America's Teachers were studied and compared to the literacy of
other adults. While teachers display a considerable range of these
skills (as all groups do), on the whole they perform quite well. Across
all three National Adult Literacy (NALS) scales--prose, document and
quantitative, teachers performed significantly higher than the general
adult population and scored at similar levels to other college-educated
adults in all three domains.
The Academic Quality of Prospective Teachers: The Impact of
Admissions and Licensure Testing examined teachers'' scores on college
admissions tests and teacher licensure tests. The study found that
teachers'' academic ability varies widely by type of licensure sought,
with those candidates seeking licenses in academic subject areas having
the highest college admissions test scores, and those in non-academic
fields such as elementary education having the lowest scores.
______
Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Landgraf.
Mr. Wiener?
STATEMENT OF ROSS WIENER, POLICY DIRECTOR, THE EDUCATION TRUST
Mr. Wiener. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Miller,
and Members of the Committee. Thank you very much for this
opportunity to testify before you today on the importance of
the teacher quality provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act.
For decades, we've known that pubic education has accepted
high levels of out-of-field teaching as inevitable and has
systematically assigned its weakest teachers to its weakest
students. Indeed, no matter the measure of teacher quality, the
conclusion is always the same. Low income students and students
of color are pervasively assigned to less qualified teachers
than their peers.
This Committee has exhibited great leadership in the effort
to correct these unfair practices and improve teacher quality
by including expansive teacher-related provisions in NCLB.
These provisions represent the support side of this
ambitious law, the substantive provisions with the most
potential to actually improve teaching and learning in
previously low performing schools.
Before talking directly about the provisions of the law,
let me remind you of some context. As Congress prepared to
reauthorize ESEA in 2001, African American, Latino and low
income high school seniors were graduating with skills in
reading and mathematics that were virtually indistinguishable
from other students at the end of middle school.
These gaps in student skills threaten to undermine the
nation's economic vitality and have profound moral and civic
implications for a democratic society that is committed to
equality of opportunity.
Your focus on teacher quality is critically important. The
latest research establishes that teachers vary tremendously in
their effectiveness, and that the most effective teachers can
teach even the most disadvantaged students up to high
standards.
Congress has responded to this growing knowledge about the
importance of quality teachers with a number of legislative
initiatives, but none have been more significant or possess
more potential for positive impact than the teacher quality
provisions in NCLB.
These provisions call on states to accept three fundamental
responsibilities:
1. To define what it means to be a highly qualified teacher
and to adopt the goal of all teachers meeting this standard by
2006;
2. To ensure that poor and minority children are no longer
short-changed in the distribution of teacher talent; and
3. To report to parents and the public on progress toward
meeting these goals.
Despite widespread belief to the contrary, the teacher
quality provisions in NCLB defer mightily to the states and
include significant new resources to focus on improving teacher
quality. These provisions establish a critically important
principle. If a school has a persistent problem recruiting and
retaining enough highly qualified teachers, the school district
and state have a problem too. That's good news for these
schools and their students.
It's important to keep in mind that there are no monetary
penalties or other sanctions for failing to meet the teacher
quality goals in NCLB. States and districts have pledged to
work on these issues and to publicly report on their progress.
But no systems or individual teachers will be punished if the
goals are not achieved.
Before highlighting some examples of states and districts
that are making progress on raising teacher quality, I have to
mention some of the progress we are not seeing. Unfortunately,
many states have resisted fully acknowledging the teacher
quality problems on which NCLB directs the public's attention.
They've responded to the requirements of the law by adopting
specifications that are so weak they make it appear as if there
are no pressing problems on which to focus.
Compounding this resistance in the field, the U.S.
Department of Education has not shown sufficient leadership in
the area of teacher quality. Consequently the teacher quality
provisions, the provisions that emphatically embrace teachers
as the most important resource in helping students learn and to
allocate substantial resources to help them get even better,
have frequently been cast as anti-teacher. And a law that
stresses both accountability and support gets misunderstood as
being focused only on accountability.
Now let me briefly describe a couple of districts and
states that have embraced the teacher quality challenge and are
seeing some promising results. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
NCLB is strengthening the hand of education leaders who are
willing to tackle the problem head on.
Because of NCLB, all of Pennsylvania's middle school
teachers who had not previously demonstrated subject knowledge
were required to take the state's teacher exam in their
subjects. The results brought attention to the fact that many
of Philadelphia's middle school teachers need additional
assistance and support to strengthen their subject knowledge.
In fact, more than half of all middle school teachers and
almost two-thirds of the middle school math teachers did not
pass the test.
Philadelphia school district and its superintendent are to
be commended for their positive and constructive response to
these results. The superintendent publicly referred to the test
results as a wake up call. The school district announced a
major initiative that will provide intensive training and
assistance to help these teachers. Without the teacher quality
provisions in NCLB, this important issue would have received
little or no attention and fewer resources.
An initiative in Chattanooga, Tennessee is focused on
helping nine high poverty elementary schools, each of which
previously ranked among the bottom 20 statewide in terms of
achievement. The core strategy is a bonus plan that provides an
extra $5,000 for highly effective teachers who agree to teach
in the targeted schools, and the results have been impressive.
High teacher turnover, a perennial problem in these
schools, has greatly declined. The percentage of third grade
students reading at grade level increased by nearly 50 percent,
while the targeted schools have improved much faster than other
schools both in the district and the state in all five subjects
tested.
Other districts are now emulating this example, including a
program in Mobile, Alabama that is using their Title II NCLB
funds to pay substantial bonuses to highly qualified teachers
who agree to work in the lowest performing schools, and
additional bonuses if these teachers meet ambitious goals for
raising student achievement.
Finally, the Ohio Partnership for Accountability is a newly
formed consortium of all 50 teacher preparation institutions in
the state, the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio Department of
Education. The Partnership has secured participation of both
major teacher unions in the state as well as the business
community. This groundbreaking project would evaluate the
preparation, in-school support and effectiveness of Ohio's
teachers using field studies and a comprehensive data base that
is being built for this purpose.
There is no question that NCLB has brought added energy and
urgency to understanding good teaching and ensuring that more
students get it.
Finally, I'd like to quickly make three recommendations to
the Committee. But first, the U.S. Department of Education
needs to better meet its responsibilities to explain the
teacher quality provisions, monitor compliance, and share best
practices.
This last responsibility is critically important to
conveying a sense of hope and possibility in the face of
credits who claim the law's goals are unreachable or
unreasonable.
The specific actions that Congress could take include the
following:
1. Ask GAO, the Government Accounting Office, to report on
Title II allocations and programs. Congress has increased
funding for teaching quality improvement activities by nearly
50 percent after enacting NCLB, from approximately $2 billion
to approximately $3 billion for year. The funding formula in
Title II specifically targets most of this money to the schools
with the fewest highly qualified teachers.
However, many public reports suggest that the existence of
these additional funds is not widely known and are not being
effectively targeted to the neediest schools. Congress should
request an accounting on this issue.
2. Support value-added data systems. Many states had not
previously collected data on the distribution of qualified
teachers. This is an imperative first step to identifying the
most serious problems and tracking progress over time. Better
information management systems and technology could help states
identify which of their teachers are most effective and learn
from them.
A small investment to help states develop and implement
better data systems would greatly enhance the knowledge base on
which states design and evaluate education improvement
strategies.
3. Commit additional resources to teacher quality
initiatives. Federal resources could provide incentives to
recruit more teachers with strong backgrounds in math and
science as well as teachers who are skilled at helping students
with disabilities, teachers with bilingual skills, and more
underrepresented minorities into the teaching profession.
Specifically, high poverty schools do not have the
resources they need to compete for the most qualified teachers.
States need to step up to their responsibilities on this issue,
but Congress could help with significant incentives for
teachers who have proven to be effective and who are willing to
take on the toughest challenges in the highest poverty schools.
In conclusion, the teacher quality provisions in NCLB
represent an important extension of the Federal Government's
efforts to improve public education, in particular for low
income and minority students. This focus is based on a strong
record of research. Moreover, these provisions embody the best
elements of federalism. They identify a problem of national
significance, they provide some resources to state and local
education leaders to focus on these problems, and they call on
states to address their own unique circumstances with their own
standards and strategies.
In essence, getting enough qualified teachers for our
nation's public schools needs to be everyone's business. By
placing teacher quality squarely on the nation's agenda,
Congress has made it more likely that public K-12 systems will
get the help they need from their state legislatures,
institutions of higher education, business communities and
other sectors of society.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wiener follows:]
Statement of Ross Wiener, Policy Director, The Education Trust
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for this
opportunity to testify before you today on the importance of the
teacher quality provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
My purpose today is to emphasize why the subject of teacher quality
should remain high on your agenda; to provide a report on
implementation of NCLB's teacher quality provisions, including some
early images of progress; and to make some recommendations for
oversight and legislative activities Congress could undertake to ensure
these provisions are implemented with the greatest possible benefits to
students.
For decades, we've known that public education has accepted high
levels of out-of-field teaching as inevitable, and has systematically
assigned its weakest teachers to its weakest students. Indeed, no
matter the measure of teacher quality--certification, major or minor
in-field, years of experience, performance on certification or
licensure exams--the conclusion is always the same: low-income students
and students of color are pervasively assigned to less qualified
teachers than their peers.
This Committee has exhibited great leadership in the effort to
improve teacher quality and correct these unfair practices by including
expansive teacher-related provisions in NCLB. These provisions
represent the first major federal commitment to ensuring that all
students are taught by qualified teachers, and constitute important
progress in the quest for educational excellence and equality. They are
the ``support'' side of this ambitious law--the substantive provisions
with the most potential to actually improve teaching and instruction in
previously low-performing schools.
I. Context
Before talking directly about the provisions of the law, let me
remind you of some context. As all of you know, this country made a lot
of progress during the 1970s and 80s in raising both achievement among
poor and minority students and narrowing the gaps that separated them
from other students. Beginning about 1988, however, that progress
stopped and the gaps between groups started widening again.
This pattern would have been troubling at any time. But it was
especially distressing that these gaps began widening at a time when
education was becoming more important than ever before. In today's
economy, young workers who don't have strong skills are shut out of
most jobs that pay a living wage, no matter how hard they work.
Yet, as Congress prepared to reauthorize ESEA in 2001, African
American, Latino and low-income high school seniors were graduating
with skills in reading and mathematics that were virtually
indistinguishable from other students at the end of middle school.
These gaps in student skills threaten to undermine the nation's
economic vitality, and have profound moral and civic implications for a
democratic society committed to equality of opportunity.
II. The Focus on Teacher Quality is Critically Important
When ESEA was originally enacted in 1965, education research seemed
to suggest that socio-economic status and parental education level had
an overwhelming impact on student achievement. Conventional wisdom was
that not much of what schools did affected student achievement.
By the time Congress reauthorized the law in 2001, however, more
sophisticated data analysis techniques had established that schools
make a huge impact on whether students learn, and the single most
important factor is good teachers. Through value-added analysis
pioneered by Dr. William Sanders at the University of Tennessee, and
replicated in districts across the country, we now know that the
quality of teachers varies tremendously and that the most effective
teachers can teach even the most disadvantaged students up to high
standards. \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See Good Teaching Matters: How Well-Qualified Teachers Can
Close the Gap, Education Trust, Summer 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzing large-scale databases, economists have concluded that
assigning highly effective teachers to the neediest students could
virtually eliminate the gaps in student proficiency on state
assessments of English/language arts and mathematics.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Steven G. Rivkin, Eric A. Hanusheck, and John F. Kain,
Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I cite this research not to suggest that poverty and external
factors are irrelevant to student achievement. The fact is some
students face more disadvantages outside of school than others. The
tragedy, however, is that public education reflects and actually
exacerbates these inequalities. Instead of giving more to the students
who are most dependent on schools for their learning, public education
consistently gives them the least.
Nowhere is this practice more damaging than in the inequitable
distribution of qualified teachers. Yet, despite public commitments to
ensuring that all students would be educated up to state standards, and
despite the research establishing that teachers were the key to meeting
this goal, most States and districts continued to assign their weakest
teachers to their most vulnerable students.
III. Teacher Quality Provisions in NCLB
Congress has responded to the growing knowledge about the
importance of quality teachers with a number of legislative
initiatives, including important new teacher-related provisions in the
Higher Education Act of 1998. But none have been more significant or
possess more potential for positive impact than the teacher quality
provisions in NCLB. These provisions call on States to accept three
fundamental responsibilities:
to define what it means to be ``highly qualified'' and
adopt the goal of all teachers meeting that standard by spring 2006;
to ensure that poor and minority children are no longer
taught disproportionately by inexperienced, unqualified, and out-of-
field teachers, and;
to report to parents and the public on progress toward
meeting these goals.
Despite widespread belief to the contrary, the teacher quality
provisions in NCLB defer mightily to the states and include significant
new resources to focus on improving teacher quality. Essentially, NCLB
sets up a low-stakes system of goals and public reporting to support
improvements in teacher quality and in the equitable distribution of
qualified teachers.
States are required to adopt definitions of who is qualified to
teach. In addition to their ordinary requirements (which typically
include at least a bachelor's degree and certain education coursework),
NCLB includes only one substantive requirement: demonstration of
content knowledge.
States that don't already do so are required by NCLB to
assess content knowledge of elementary teachers through a state test
that covers the range of knowledge that the state determines to be
necessary to deliver the elementary curriculum.
For middle and high school teachers, NCLB demands that
states assess subject-knowledge separately in each of the subjects to
which the teacher is assigned. For secondary teachers who don't have a
major, advanced degree, or advanced certification in a particular
subject, states must adopt tests to assess teachers'' subject
knowledge.
These are very common sense requirements--teachers can't teach what
they don't know well.
Then, based on their own definitions, States were required to
collect data on the percent of classes throughout the State that were
taught by highly qualified teachers, and compare the highest-poverty
districts with the lowest-poverty districts. This data was to form a
baseline for measuring progress and was supposed to be widely
distributed to parents, the public and policymakers.
Most significantly, states and districts have been asked to adopt
plans for ensuring that all students are taught by teachers that the
State considers ``highly qualified.'' This provision establishes a
critically important principle: states and districts are responsible
for providing all students with qualified teachers. Under NCLB, if a
school has a persistent problem recruiting and retaining enough
qualified teachers, then the district and State have a problem too.
That's good news for these schools and their students.
Among the teacher quality provisions in NCLB, there is one which
has been little-noted, but carries more simple power and moral
authority than all the others combined. It demands that States
articulate the specific steps they will take to:
ensure that poor and minority children are not taught at higher
rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified, or
out-of-field teachers, and the measures that the state
educational agency will use to evaluate and publicly report the
progress of the state educational agency with respect to such
steps. 20 U.S.C. Sec. 6311(b)(8)(C).
This provision, and the analogous requirement for school districts
(see 20 U.S.C. Sec. 6312(c)(1)(L)), are appropriate and reasonable
requirements for participation in federal programs aimed at helping
disadvantaged children. After many years of providing federal funds
without any progress on the unequal assignment of teachers, Congress
realized that it could not expect improved results for poor and
minority students unless these students were taught by qualified
teachers.
It is important to keep in mind that there are no monetary
penalties or other sanctions for failing to meet the teacher quality
goals in NCLB. States and districts have pledged to work on these
issues and to publicly report on their progress, but no systems or
individual teachers will be punished if the goals are not achieved.
There is no incentive under the federal law for states to lower their
standards or obscure the extent of the problem--unless public reporting
itself is construed as punitive.
IV. Implementation Progress
Before highlighting some examples of states and districts that are
making progress on raising teacher quality issues, I have to mention
some of the progress we are not seeing. Unfortunately, many states have
resisted fully acknowledging the teacher quality problems on which NCLB
directs the public's attention. Perhaps because they are worried about
the political and financial costs of tackling these issues, many state
education leaders and policymakers have mischaracterized and maligned
NCLB's teacher quality provisions. They've ``responded'' to the
requirements of the law by adopting specifications that are so weak
they make it appear as if there are no pressing problems on which to
focus.
Sadly, when this happens, both teachers and students suffer.
Teachers, because the resources set aside to invest in increasing their
knowledge and skills aren't focused on this after all. Students suffer
because many of their teachers need the additional help and support
envisioned under NCLB.
The U.S. Department of Education has not shown sufficient
leadership in confronting the misinformation, in building support for
the teacher quality provisions, or in sharing widely some of the best
things states and districts are doing. Indeed, at times the Department
has denied the existence of key NCLB provisions related to teacher
quality, including the requirement that states and districts do more to
distribute teacher talent equally.
Consequently, the teacher quality provisions--provisions that
emphatically embrace teachers as the most important resource in helping
students learn and allocate substantial resources to help them get even
better--have frequently been cast as anti-teacher. And a law that
stresses both accountability and support gets misunderstood as being
focused only on accountability.
Early Images of Positive Impact
Already, in states and districts that have embraced the teacher
quality challenge, we are seeing some promising progress since the
enactment of Title II.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
For years, out-of-field teaching has been a closely guarded secret
in public education. Many states and districts have been loathe to
acknowledge this problem, but NCLB is strengthening the hand of
education leaders who are willing to tackle the problem head-on.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania offers one such example: Because of
NCLB, all of Pennsylvania's middle school teachers who had not
previously demonstrated knowledge in the subjects to which they were
assigned were required to take the state's teacher exam in their
subject(s). The results brought attention to the fact that many of
Philadelphia's middle school teachers have been teaching without
sufficient knowledge of the subjects they were assigned to teach. In
fact, more than half of all middle school teachers who took the tests,
including almost two-thirds of the middle school math teachers, did not
pass. These teachers need additional assistance and support to
strengthen their subject knowledge.
Philadelphia's school district and its superintendent are to be
commended for their positive and constructive response to these
results. The superintendent publicly referred to the test results as a
``wake-up call,'' and explained that, while the assessments are
rigorous and demanding, they represent knowledge that teachers need to
possess. The school district announced a major initiative that will
provide intensive training and assistance to help these teachers,
supported with both public and private funds. Without the teacher
quality provisions in NCLB, this important issue would have received
little or no attention and fewer resources.
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Recent initiatives in school districts like Chattanooga, Tennessee
provide powerful evidence that bringing highly effective teachers
together with low-performing, low-income, and minority students can
successfully raise achievement. Chattanooga recently embarked on a
concentrated effort to help students in nine high-poverty elementary
schools, each of which previously ranked among the bottom 20 statewide
in terms of achievement. The core of their strategy was a series of
steps to greatly increase the quality of instruction. An innovative
salary bonus plan provided an extra $5,000 for teachers who were rated
as highly effective under Tennessee's nationally-recognized ``value-
added'' system of measuring teacher effectiveness, and who agreed to
teach in the targeted schools.
The results have been impressive. High teacher turnover, a
perennial problem for hard-to-staff schools, has greatly declined. The
percentage of third grade students reading at grade level increased by
nearly 50% over two years, while the targeted schools have improved
much faster than other schools both district and statewide, in all five
subjects tested. Chattanooga is showing that teacher-focused strategies
to close the achievement gap can work. Other districts are emulating
this example, including a program in Mobile, Alabama, which is using
NCLB Title II funds to pay substantial bonuses to highly qualified
teachers who agree to work in the lowest-performing schools, and
additional bonuses if these teachers meet ambitious goals for raising
student achievement.
State of Ohio
In March 2004, the formation of the Ohio Partnership for
Accountability was announced, which is a consortium of all 50 teacher
preparation institutions in the state, the Ohio Board of Regents, and
the Ohio Department of Education. The Partnership has secured the
participation of both major teacher unions in Ohio as well as the
business community. This ambitious project will evaluate the
preparation, in-school support, and effectiveness of Ohio's teachers
using field studies and a comprehensive database that is being
customized for this purpose.
News reports surrounding the announcement of the Ohio Partnership
credited NCLB for getting states more keenly focused on issues of
teacher quality, and projected that Ohio could become an example for
other states to follow. There is no question that NCLB has brought
added energy and urgency to understanding good teaching and ensuring
that more children get it.
V. Recommendations
While the teacher quality provisions have garnered significant
attention, their actual impact on changing practices and procedures in
the field has been limited. To some degree, this is understandable as
states and districts have devoted significant time and energy to
getting their accountability systems up and running. The U.S.
Department of Education needs to step up to its responsibilities in at
least three areas: (1) ensure that states, other key stakeholders, and
the public have an accurate understanding of NCLB's teacher quality
provisions; (2) monitor compliance with the law more conscientiously;
and (3) identify and disseminate best practices. This last
responsibility is critically important to conveying a sense of hope and
possibility in the face of critics who claim the law's goals are
unreachable or unreasonable.
Congress should undertake proactive oversight activities to ensure
these provisions are being implemented, to learn about shortcomings
that should be addressed in the next ESEA reauthorization, and to
explore areas where additional federal legislation and financial
support could accelerate progress on teacher quality issues.
Specifically, Congress should consider the following:
1. Ask GAO to Report on Title II Allocations and Programs
Title II funds are intended to help current teachers attain highly
qualified status and to help hard-to-staff schools recruit and retain
more highly qualified teachers. Congress increased funding for teacher
quality improvement activities by nearly 50% after enacting NCLB, from
approximately $2 billion to $3 billion per year. The funding formula in
Title II specifically targets most of this money to the highest-poverty
districts and then to the schools with the fewest highly qualified
teachers. However, many public reports continue to bemoan the
establishment of federal teacher quality goals without any federal
resources to help solve the problems, suggesting that the existence of
these additional funds is not widely known.
Additionally, in part because many states have not had reliable
data collection systems and practices, many states have reported that
the overwhelming majority of classes are being taught by highly
qualified teachers, even in the highest-poverty schools. This
contradicts years of research and survey data, and raises a concern
that Title II funds are not being effectively targeted to the neediest
schools. Too little is known about how Title II's $3 billion annual
appropriation is being used. Congress should request an accounting on
this issue.
2. Support Value-Added Data Systems
Many states had not previously collected data on the distribution
of qualified teachers. This is an imperative first step to identifying
the most serious problems and tracking progress over time. Even some
states that have reliable statewide data do not have systems that are
needed for sophisticated data analysis. Better information management
systems and technology could help states better understand which of
their teachers are most effective, and learn from them. Indeed, some
forward-thinking districts such as Chattanooga, Tennessee are already
using value-added data in just this way.\3\ Under current fiscal
constraints, however, many state educational agencies are unable to
invest in high-quality data systems. A small investment to help states
develop and implement better data systems would greatly enhance the
knowledge base on which states design and evaluate education
improvement strategies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ The Real Value of Teachers, The Education Trust, Winter 2004,
Washington, D.C.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Commit Additional Resources to Teacher Quality Initiatives
Raising the quality of teaching in the nation's public schools
requires a long-term commitment of political leadership and monetary
resources. Federal resources could provide incentives to recruit more
teachers with strong backgrounds in mathematics and science, as well as
teachers who are skilled at helping students with disabilities,
teachers with bilingual skills, and more under-represented minorities
into the teaching profession.
Long-standing patterns of unequal distribution of qualified
teachers are particularly hard to change, and high-poverty schools do
not have the resources they need to compete for the most qualified
teachers. States need to step up to their responsibilities on this
issue, but Congress could help with significant incentives for teachers
who have proven to be effective and who are willing to take on the
toughest challenges in the highest-poverty schools. Right now, we don't
know enough about what really works in attracting and retaining the
most effective teachers into our hardest-to-staff schools. A
competitive grant for those districts willing to experiment and provide
examples and lessons for the rest could make a significant contribution
in this area.
VI. Conclusion
The teacher quality provisions in NCLB represent an important
extension of the federal government's efforts to improve public
education, in particular for low-income and minority students. This
focus is based on a strong record of research establishing teacher
quality as the sine qua non of educational improvement efforts.
Moreover, the teacher quality provisions in NCLB embody the best
elements of federalism: they identify a problem of national
significance, provide some resources to state and local officials to
focus on these problems, and call on the states to address their own
unique circumstances with their own standards and strategies.
By placing teacher quality squarely on the nation's agenda,
Congress has made it more likely that public K-12 systems will get the
help they need from their state legislatures, institutions of higher
education, business communities, and other sectors of society. In
essence, getting enough qualified teachers for our nation's public
schools needs to be everyone's business. Congress has made an important
contribution by elevating the prominence of the issue, and by providing
some resources to spark innovation.
Most importantly, Congress has taken a significant step forward in
the quest to ensure that systems of public education better respond to
the needs of all students--especially low-income students and students
of color.
______
Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Wiener.
Ms. Mitchell.
STATEMENT OF EILEEN MITCHELL, TEACHER, THE WILLIAM T. DAVIS
SCHOOL (P.S. 31), STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK
Ms. Mitchell. Good morning, Chairman Boehner, Ranking
Member Miller, Congressman Owens, and Members of the Committee.
My name is Eileen Mitchell, and I teach fifth grade at P.S. 31
on Staten Island. I'm also a member of the United Federation of
Teachers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss teacher quality. Let me start by saying that I agree
with the goal of NCLB that all students should be taught by
well supported teachers who know their subject matter and how
to teach it. But the real question is, what path do we take to
achieve this goal? I will draw from my experience as a teacher
and tell you what I believe will and will not work.
Some call for weakening or even eliminating schools of
education. I disagree with this view. The best way to ensure an
adequate supply of well trained teachers is not by avoiding
collegiate teacher education, but rather by acknowledging its
faults and strengthening its rigor.
I would like to take a few minutes to talk about a report
released by the AFT which recommends strategies for reshaping
the teaching profession. I would like to share some of them and
indicate how they interact with NCLB. First, I believe that
teachers must know their subject matter and how to teach it.
The intent of NCLB is to ensure that teachers have mastered the
subject matter knowledge required to teach in their subject
areas. Many veteran teachers who met the existing state
requirements when they entered the profession have demonstrated
mastery in their subject areas by participating in professional
development, completing graduate courses, and by their years of
successful teaching.
NCLB wisely recognizes this by allowing veteran teachers to
demonstrate that they are highly qualified by meeting a High
Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation, or HOUSSE.
However, the United States Department of Education has issued
guidance saying that states may choose to offer the HOUSSE to
these veteran teachers. Many states have not yet developed the
HOUSSE, which makes it more difficult for teachers to
demonstrate that they are highly qualified by the law's
deadline. States should be required to develop the HOUSSE in
order to ensure that veteran teachers can demonstrate their
qualifications.
Second, to be effective in the classroom, knowledge of
subject matter alone is not enough. Teachers have to learn the
craft of teaching and be exposed to instructional strategies
that help students learn.
Third, all beginning teachers need to participate in a high
quality mentoring program.
Fourth, the same standards that apply to traditional
teaching preparation programs should apply to alternative
routes to certification, and this option should not be
synonymous with lower standards. Proper implementation of the
teacher quality provisions in NCLB, including those prohibiting
emergency licensure, will help ensure that all students are
taught by qualified teachers.
We saw the dangers of emergency licensure in New York in
response to an acute shortage of qualified teachers. At one
point, more than 17 percent of our teaching staff lacked the
required credentials. I'm glad to say that this is no longer
the case.
And a few words about out-of-field teaching. Teachers do
not choose to teach subjects that they are not qualified to
teach, but all too often, administrators assign individuals to
teach courses outside of their licensure area, and teachers are
not at liberty to decline such assignments. To the extent that
NCLB can rectify this problem, it would be one of the best
outcomes of the law. However, teachers should not be penalized
in the process.
One example of the problems in implementing NCLB concerns
the requirements for special education teachers. Under current
interpretations, special education teachers who are fully
certified in their field are also required to meet separate
subject matter requirements for each core academic subject they
teach. This is unrealistic, particularly in the case of those
who teach multiple subjects in self-contained classrooms. The
burden placed on special education teachers is likely to
exacerbate the shortage of teachers in this field.
Another way to help teachers to succeed is to support
effective professional development programs. I also want to
speak directly about teacher compensation, because it underlies
many teacher quality problems, and addressing this issue will
do more than anything else to help us meet the teacher quality
goals of NCLB.
Despite the strong emphasis placed on education in our
nation, current teacher salaries do not reflect recognition of
the pivotal role teachers play. It is worth noting New York
City now offers more competitive salaries, particularly at the
entry level. This has attracted a higher percentage of
qualified teachers in city classrooms.
Last fall we witnessed the positive impact that salaries
have on improving teacher quality. Ninety-six percent of the
9,400 newly hired teachers were certified, compared to only 50
percent in fall 2001 before the salary increase. Our experience
in New York City reminds us that in striving to improve teacher
quality, we must work to make teacher salaries competitive with
other professions.
But recruitment is only half the battle. In New York City,
we lose more than one-third of our new teachers after only 2
years. To reverse this trend, we must provide ongoing supports
and opportunities for professional growth.
Teachers are the most basic educational resource that
communities provide to students. Competitive salaries, rigorous
preparation and licensure qualifications, mentoring programs
and ongoing professional development are important to ensuring
that all students have qualified teachers. Anything less denies
students access to the quality education they deserve.
Thank you again for the chance to talk about teacher
quality from the perspective of teachers. I would like to
invite you to come visit me or the teachers in your district in
our classrooms. We are hard at work every day trying to meet
the admirable goals of NCLB.
I welcome any questions. Thank you again.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Mitchell follows:]
Statement of Eileen Mitchell, Teacher, The William T. Davis School
(P.S. 31), Staten Island, New York
Good morning Chairman Boehner, Ranking Member Miller, Congressman
Owens and members of the committee.
My name is Eileen Mitchell, and I am currently a fifth-grade
teacher at P.S. 31 on Staten Island and have been teaching for 9 years
in New York City. I am also a member of the United Federation of
Teachers (UFT), an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers
(AFT).
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss
teacher quality. I have followed with great interest the debate
around--and implementation of--the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Let
me start be saying that like most classroom teachers across the
country, I agree with the goal that all students should be taught by
well-supported teachers who know their subject matter and how to teach
it. But the real question is what path do we take to achieve this goal?
I would like to draw from my experience as a teacher in New York and
tell you what I believe will--and will not--work.
One school of thought calls for weakening, deregulating, and even
eliminating schools of education that currently educate the vast
majority of our teachers. This view holds that there is little beyond
subject matter that teachers need to know and that pedagogy does not
matter or can be acquired on the job. I disagree with this view. The
best way to ensure an adequate supply of well-trained teachers is not
by avoiding collegiate teacher education, but rather by acknowledging
its faults and strengthening its rigor. Focusing on the way teacher
education programs screen and prepare teaching candidates, as well as
on higher standards for entering the profession, will ultimately lead
to a better qualified teaching force that will benefit all students.
I would like to take a few minutes to talk about a report that was
released by the American Federation of Teachers in 2001 (Building a
Profession: Strengthening Teacher Preparation and Induction), which
recommended strategies for reshaping the teaching profession. These
recommendations still hold today. I would like to share some of them
with the Committee and indicate how they may interact with NCLB.
First, I believe that teachers must know their subject matter and
how to teach it. This is essential. Teacher candidates should be
required to complete an academic major in addition to pedagogical
studies and general liberal arts coursework. The major must be rigorous
and comprehensive enough for prospective teachers to gain mastery in
their field of study so they can ultimately help students meet rigorous
K-12 education standards.
Again, the intent of NCLB to ensure that teachers have mastered the
subject- matter knowledge required to teach in their subject areas is
sound. Many veteran teachers who met the existing state requirements
when they entered the profession have demonstrated mastery in their
subject areas by participating in professional development, completing
graduate courses and by their years of successful teaching.
NCLB wisely recognizes this by allowing veteran teachers to
demonstrate that they are highly qualified by meeting a ``high
objective uniform State standard of evaluation'' (HOUSSE). However, the
U.S. Department of Education has issued guidance saying that states may
choose whether to offer the HOUSSE to these veteran teachers. Many
states have not yet developed the HOUSSE, which makes it more difficult
for teachers to demonstrate by school year 2005-06 that they are highly
qualified under the law's definition. States should be required to
develop the HOUSSE in order to ensure that veteran teachers can
demonstrate their qualifications in the manner that the law intended.
Second, to be effective in the classroom, knowledge of subject
matter alone is not enough. Teachers have to learn the craft of
teaching and be exposed to instructional strategies that help students
learn. Although NCLB gives weight to mastery of subject-matter
knowledge, it does not emphasize the acquisition of pedagogical skills
that are necessary for a high-quality teaching force. Any teacher will
tell you that if an individual knows her subject, but doesn't know how
to teach it, she will not be successful in the classroom.
Third, all beginning teachers need to participate in a high-quality
mentoring program that includes a selection process for identifying
outstanding mentor teachers; adequate training and compensation for
these mentors; and time for them to genuinely teach and support
beginning teachers. Mentoring for teachers is a critical piece of the
teacher quality puzzle, particularly in schools that are struggling
academically. NCLB recognizes the value of mentoring by allowing states
and districts to use Title II funds to develop teacher mentoring
programs and by requiring districts with schools ``in need of
improvement'' to provide mentoring programs for the teachers in these
schools. In addition, the House-passed Ready to Teach Act (H.R. 2211)
wisely provides grants that can support mentoring. The availability of
these programs reflects an understanding that new teachers must be
supported and that we can no longer throw them into the classroom to
sink or swim.
Fourth, the same standards that apply to traditional teacher
preparation programs should apply to alternative routes to
certification. Alternative routes to certification should not be
synonymous with lower standards. State departments of education should
recognize alternative routes that, at a minimum, admit only prospective
teaching candidates who pass exams in the appropriate content areas. In
addition, such programs must provide pedagogical coursework to
alternative route candidates, monitor their performance in the
classroom, and provide other services to support the development of
effective teaching skills and strategies.
Proper implementation of the teacher quality provisions in NCLB,
including those prohibiting emergency licensure, will help ensure that
all students are taught by teachers who are adequately prepared in the
subjects they teach, are armed with instructional skills, and are fully
and appropriately licensed. We saw the dangers of emergency licensure
in New York. Although the city and state had rigorous entry
requirements in place, for years they were compromised by the issuance
of waivers for more than half of each year's recruits. This was done in
response to an acute shortage of qualified teachers. At one point, more
than 17 percent of our teaching staff lacked the required credentials.
I'm glad to say this is no longer the case.
I think it is also appropriate to say a few words about out-of-
field teaching. This practice should be eliminated. Teachers do not
choose to teach subjects they are not qualified to teach. But all too
often administrators assign individuals to teach courses outside their
licensure area, and these teachers are not at liberty to decline such
assignments. To the extent that NCLB can rectify this problem, it will
surely be one of the best outcomes of the law. However, we must be sure
that teachers are not penalized in the process.
One example of problems in implementing NCLB concerns the
requirements for special education teachers. Under current
interpretations, special education teachers who are fully certified in
their field are also required to meet separate subject-matter
requirements for each core academic subject they teach. This is
unrealistic, particularly in the case of those who teach multiple
subjects in self-contained classrooms. The burden placed on special
education teachers is likely to exacerbate the shortage of teachers in
this field.
Another way to help teachers succeed is to support meaningful
professional development programs. Effective professional development
programs must:
Help teachers deepen and broaden their content knowledge
by keeping pace with new advances in their discipline. Those who do not
know content well cannot teach it well, so a prime purpose of
professional development must be deepening the content knowledge of
teachers. This is especially important now that standards for students
are becoming more rigorous.
Include a strong foundation in pedagogy. Simply knowing
content, while crucial, is not sufficient. Teachers must be able to
present the difficult concepts within their disciplines in a manner
that students can grasp and then apply to their studies. Effective
professional development programs should help teachers acquire
strategies that help students make this connection.
Provide knowledge about the teaching and learning
process. Teachers must know how to manage a classroom of youngsters so
that teaching and learning can take place. Professional development
programs must be research-based and provide practical skills that
teachers can use in their classrooms.
Be aligned with the standards and curriculum teachers
use. Significant changes in practice should not be instituted on the
basis of unfounded preferences or because an idea is highly publicized.
Practice should be examined and change considered on the basis of sound
research. In addition, too many times there is no connection between
the performance that particular states and school districts expect of
students and the curriculum and professional development they provide
to teachers. Professional development should help teachers understand
what standards mean, how they will know that their students meet the
standards, and the differences between standards-based and other forms
of instruction.
There are other components that are essential to effective
professional development programs. They should be intellectually
engaging and address the complexity of teaching; provide sufficient
time, support and resources to enable teachers to master and integrate
new content and pedagogy; and involve teachers at all levels of
expertise. If states and districts adopt meaningful professional
development programs that incorporate these guidelines, we will take a
big step forward in our efforts to improve teaching and learning.
Now, I also want to speak directly about teacher compensation
because it underlies many teacher quality problems, and addressing this
issue will do more than anything else to help us meet the teacher
quality goals of NCLB. Despite the strong emphasis placed on education
in our nation, current teacher salaries do not reflect recognition of
the pivotal role teachers play in educating our children. We know from
data included in the AFT's 2002 Teacher Salary Survey that average
teacher salaries for new teachers start well below those in many other
professions. For example, the survey shows that the average new teacher
earns $30,719 while a starting accountant or engineer makes an average
of $41,162 and $49,702 respectively. In addition, this gap is
maintained, and in some cases even grows, over time as the average
salary for a teacher is $44,367 compared to $54,503 for an accountant
and $76,298 for an engineer. These figures make a strong statement
about the value we place on teaching in America.
It is also worth noting New York City now offers more competitive
salaries, particularly at the entry level. This has attracted a higher
percentage of qualified teachers into city classrooms. Last fall, we
witnessed the positive impact that salaries have on improving teacher
quality--96 percent of the 9,480 newly hired teachers were certified,
compared to only 50 percent in fall 2001 before the salary increase.
Our experience in New York City reminds us that in striving to improve
teacher quality, we must work to make teacher salaries competitive with
other professions.
But recruitment is only half the battle. I know from firsthand
experience that in New York City we lose more than one-third of our new
teachers after only two years. To reverse this trend, we must focus
much more on providing the ongoing supports and conditions and
opportunities for professional growth. Experience is a big part of
quality teaching. As eager as newcomers may be, they need a few years
on the job to fully realize their potential. If teachers leave before
that point, our students never receive the benefit of their fully
developed skills.
Teachers are the most basic educational resource that communities
provide to students. By ensuring a competitive salary base and
schedule, together with rigorous preparation and licensure
qualifications, mentoring and induction programs, and ongoing
professional development, all students can have access to well-
prepared, qualified teachers. Anything less denies students access to
the quality education they deserve.
Strengthening teacher quality will take political will, resources,
and a greater seriousness of purpose among all involved in the policies
and practices related to the preparation of teachers. The answer on how
best to recruit and retain high-quality teachers is professionalism:
Outstanding preparation, strong induction programs and competitive pay,
administrative support and ongoing opportunities for professional
growth.
Thank you again Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Miller for the
chance to talk about teacher quality from the perspective of teachers.
I would like to invite you to come visit me--or teachers in your
district--in the classroom. We are hard at work every day trying to
meet the admirable goals of NCLB. I welcome any questions that members
of the Committee may have in regard to my testimony.
______
Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Ms. Mitchell.
Mr. Bailey.
STATEMENT OF TRACEY BAILEY, 1993 NATIONAL TEACHER OF THE YEAR,
NATIONAL PROJECTS DIRECTOR FOR THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN
EDUCATORS
Mr. Bailey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Committee. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to
speak.
I've been asked to address a fairly specific and limited
list of issues this morning regarding the current
implementation of the highly qualified provisions of No Child
Left Behind. My experience in this comes primarily over the
last seven or 8 months in having served as a citizen member of
the U.S. Department of Ed's Teacher Assistance Corps.
And I think most of you know that that Teacher Assistance
Corps was put together primarily of people outside the
Department, about 45 or 50 individuals, teachers, professors,
folks with expertise in teacher quality. And our goal, our
assignment was to travel out to states and to find out from
them where they were having trouble implementing the highly
qualified provisions.
Now we really had, I guess, three or four avenues in this.
The first really was to listen. We were instructed--we were not
an auditing team. We were not a monitoring team. We were there
simply to listen, to learn where they were having trouble, to
offer some of those best practice or promising practices that
other states had identified, and to be able I think to
encourage them to use the flexibility they had under state-
based decisionmaking.
There were a lot of areas I was surprised to find out where
states actually had a little more flexibility than what they
were using initially. I'm going to describe some of those
visits and some of the issues that came up on those, but I will
say that I think both sides, the TAC team from the Department
of Ed, and the state leadership team, usually the Commissioner
of Education and six to a dozen of his leadership team, we had
I think a mutual appreciation for a problem-solving session.
Again, we were not there to audit or monitor. As I
understand, the monitoring phase of this begins next month or
so with the Department of Education. This was basically a heads
up to say there's one area there you have that probably isn't
consistent with the law, and better that we tell you about it
now than you find out a year or two down the road when teachers
have been put through some unnecessary grief or when they're
told then they don't meet the requirements of the law.
Now I have three areas about those visits that I'd like to
highlight.
First, I do think that the Teacher Assistance Corps was
helpful in being able to kind of head off some of the most
serious problems that the states on a few occasions were headed
into. I mean, a good example is--not often, but a few of the
states had written into the HOUSSE provisions, and primarily
HOUSSE issues were prominent because that is the mechanism by
which the vast majority of veteran teachers are going to be
deemed highly qualified in many states--some states were taking
liberties and saying if you've been teaching for 5 years,
you're highly qualified under the HOUSSE with no other
criteria.
Now that was just a misreading of the law. The law says
that experience in the classroom can and should be a
significant indicator, a significant part of the criteria, but
it cannot be the primary or majority. And to my knowledge, all
states have amended their HOUSSEs in that way.
Again, I think that we were as helpful not in pointing out
where they may have been going too far in areas, but areas
where they weren't going far enough; areas where they literally
didn't understand that they had the flexibility to make some
decisions.
I think one of the leaders in the Department of Ed
mentioned that in this topic that 80 to 85 percent of the
decisions about highly qualified teachers are made at the state
level. My colleague, Mr. Wiener here, mentioned that teacher
quality decisions in No Child Left Behind defer mightily to the
states, and I found out that was true.
Second, there is a problem. There is a high rate of
variability among the HOUSSE standards that different states
have created. Now, obviously, in laboratories of democracy, we
should expect a lot of variability. But I would say that there
are areas where there's a balance, there is a balance between
wanting--in fact, our goals, Ms. Mitchell mentioned that some
states had not yet developed HOUSSEs, and I understand that's
true. At last check, it was 30 to 40 states that have them and
only ten or so that have not or don't have them in serious
development.
In my written testimony I say typically we in the TAC team
encourage the use of an appropriately designed HOUSSE since one
of our foremost goals was to encourage states to use all of the
available flexibility in order to give teachers the most fair
opportunity to be determined highly qualified with the least
professional disruption. We're advocates of that flexibility.
But the variability that I'm referring to goes to the point
of in some states their HOUSSE provisions begin to lose focus,
particularly in those words of high standards, objective
standards and uniform standards.
Case in point. I don't know how many of these provisions
you've seen, how many of the HOUSSE matrices. Typically they
take the form of a rubric where a teacher in the first three
categories is fully entitled to take credit for professional
experience, for college coursework, for professional
development in that subject area. Those are wonderful
categories to include in a HOUSSE provision.
But then the rubrics tend to go on, and they get into areas
that are less subjective; issues like service and
organizations, service to the teaching community, awards that a
teacher may have received that may not have been in the subject
area; seminars or conferences that a teacher might have
attended that were not in the subject area.
Now those areas where in the TAC team we pointed out to
states, you ought to be a little careful. We didn't tell them
you can't do this, but we pointed out that those requirements
have to be related to the subject area, and that was of
critical importance. Now, again, it's a state decision, and I
think we as a team deferred to states' rights, but that's
something that you as Committee obviously will be looking at,
I'm sure the Department will be looking at when it follows up.
I can talk more about this in the question-and-answer period.
I think the last area that I'd like to just touch on is
that the TAC team did identify five or six areas of serious
difficulty, of genuine difficulty for states to implement even
with the best and the most sincere good faith efforts. Special
education is one of those that was mentioned. Rural schools is
one. Some issues with middle schools, science and social
studies teachers.
The list is not a long one, and the Department's response
to this was taking that feedback that came from the state
visits and very quickly, as recently as a month and a half ago,
issuing new sets of guidelines for flexibility in those areas.
I think I included in my comments attached to my testimony was
a press release and a DOE factsheet announcing the new
flexibility for rural schools, for science teachers, and for
teachers that teach in multiple subject areas.
I think the Department has been responsive in that area. We
can talk about more. On the back side of that factsheet, the
Department has highlighted four areas where states have always
had existing flexibility, and it's encouraging them to use
that, and that includes the HOUSSE provisions that we've
mentioned. It also includes some suggestions on how to work
with special ed.
In closing, I'd simply like to say this. One major problem
of implementation to this point is that rank-and-file teachers
in the classroom have not been given good information from any
level of the bureaucracy--not from their states, not from their
districts. They have been told that they might not be highly
qualified, but they haven't been able to find out what do I
need to do? Are you certain? If there's a draft policy in
progress, teachers should be told that. I think that this kind
of frustration and uncertainty and misinformation has
exacerbated any of the implementation of the highly qualified
teacher provisions. Teachers should be treated as
professionals. They should be told early on, we don't have it
finalized it, but we'll be in touch with you. Many teachers
have been told, you're not highly qualified. Yes, you are. Oh,
but you might have to go back and take these courses.
Finally, I agree with Ms. Mitchell and many of my
colleagues that these provisions are designed to get teachers
the help that they need in those few areas where teachers may
not be highly qualified in a subject area, they have the time
and the resources in order to fix that shortcoming.
Most of the time, teachers do not ask to be put in out-of-
field areas. These are placements that are imposed upon them by
the district or by a staffing crisis. The highly qualified
provisions that you have designed do give an opportunity for
teachers to say I can't go into that placement. I'm not highly
qualified in it, or I've been there for 2 years, and it's the
district's responsibility now to either get me the training or
place me back where I'm more appropriately prepared.
I appreciate your time on this, and I look forward to
answering your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bailey follows:]
Statement of Tracey Bailey, 1993 National Teacher of the Year, National
Projects Director, Association of American Educators
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee,
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss the implementation of the
Highly-Qualified Teacher (HQT) provisions of No Child Left Behind. I
have three experiences from which I approach this issue. The first is
as a member of the USDOE Teacher Assistance Corps. As you know, the TAC
Team was created by the US Department of Education last year in order
to travel to states and help identify areas where states were having
problems implementing or interpreting the Highly-Qualified Teacher
provisions. I will describe this team and its actions more thoroughly
in a moment.
Second, for the last eight years I have helped to lead an
independent professional teacher association, the Association of
American Educators. In this capacity I have received calls from
hundreds of teachers around the country about the misinformation, the
uncertainty, and the lack of clear answers from their states or school
districts about their status under the Highly-Qualified Teacher
provisions.
Third, I was a High School Physics, Chemistry, and Advanced
Placement Biology teacher in Florida, and was fortunate to be named
both Florida Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year for
the United States. This experience has given me a hands-on perspective
and a sense of urgency about getting accurate information to the
teachers who are on the front lines.
A Teacher's Story about the Highly-Qualified Provisions of NCLB
Before I begin describing some of the activities of the TAC Team,
let me share a brief anecdote about a call that came into our national
office from a teacher in Nevada. This teacher is a long-time veteran
and a consummate professional--certified for 20 years in New York State
and for more than 10 years in Nevada. Above this, she has mentored and
helped to train other mentor-teachers.
Last fall, her principal came into a faculty meeting with a long
list and a frown on her face. In what I can only imagine was a pompous
voice, she said, ``I have here a list of who is and who isn't highly
qualified!'' And with that the principal went on to read the list
aloud. ``Mrs. Smith, Highly-Qualified! Mrs. Jones, Not Highly-
Qualified! Mrs. Brown, Not Highly-Qualified!'' And so she went through
the entire faculty. And when this humiliation finally came to an end,
the principal had the audacity to remark something like, ``Let me
remind you that this is all because of No Child Left Behind.''
Now this spectacle would have been bad enough, if the principal had
even been correct about the Highly-Qualified status of these teachers.
But she wasn't. Nearly all the faculty were highly-qualified, a fact
immediately verified on our teacher's behalf with the state Department
of Education. Now forgive me for questioning not only this principal's
lack of professionalism, but also the personal motives behind such a
thoughtless and hurtful event.
Yet scenes similar to this--misinformation and unnecessary anxiety
for teachers--have been played out across the country for the last year
or more. This lack of accurate information to teachers about their own
highly-qualified status has been one of the major contributors to
stress and unnecessary anxiety in the implementation of this statute.
In large part, this is why I agreed to join the TAC Team--to help
provide states and teachers with accurate information.
The TAC Team--State Visits
As I mentioned, the TAC team was created by the US Department of
Education last year in order to travel out to states and help identify
areas where states were having problems implementing or interpreting
the Highly-Qualified Teacher provisions. It was made clear to members
of the TAC team from the beginning that we were primarily charged with
``Listening'' to the states, ``Learning'' what we could about their
problems and their unique situations, and only then offering some
``Suggestions or Promising Practices'' that were possible within the
law. These were often ideas which were being used in other states, or
suggestions that might offer a better use of the state-based decision-
making flexibility which the law allowed. We were also charged with
bringing reports back to the USDOE about the most common problems, the
most challenging issues, or the most frequently misunderstood portions
of the law.
It was surprising to me--and personally satisfying--how often the
TAC team was able to point out to states areas where they had the
ability to be more flexible than what they were originally proposing.
Our goal was to eliminate any unnecessary obstacles or disruptions for
teachers, while still keeping the standards high. Of the state visits
that I personally attended, I can say that there was--without
exception--mutual appreciation between the TAC Team and the State
Department of Education leadership for the candor, the good faith
effort, and the mutual problem-solving approach exhibited by all
parties.
One of the main areas in which the TAC Team offered guidance was in
the creation of a well-defined and objective set of H.O.U.S.S.E.
provisions. As you know, these High, Objective, Uniform, State
Standards of Evaluation are the means by which NCLB allows states to
locally decide and determine the criteria by which many teachers who
are currently in the classroom are deemed highly-qualified. I do not
think that it is an exaggeration to say that, in some states, the
majority of existing classroom teachers are determined to be highly-
qualified largely through the HOUSSE provisions.
High Variability in Application of the H.O.U.S.S.E. Provisions
In some states, I was surprised to find that they had not yet
decided how to use the HOUSSE provisions--or in some cases, whether to
use a HOUSSE option at all for their teachers. Typically, we encouraged
the use of an appropriately designed HOUSSE, since one of our foremost
goals was to encourage states to use all of the available flexibility
under HQT in order to give their teachers the most fair opportunity to
be determined as highly-qualified--with the least professional
disruption.
In a few cases, we were somewhat taken aback by the ``excessive
liberties'' that seemed to be appearing in state policies, often caused
by a temporary misreading of the law. For example, a few draft state
policies gave highly-qualified status to any teacher who had been
teaching a particular subject for five years or more, regardless of any
other factors. Not only would this be an extremely questionable single
indicator of teacher quality, but the law specifically states that any
HOUSSE must ``take into consideration, but not be based primarily on,
the time the teacher has been teaching in the academic subject.'' To my
knowledge, these states changed their draft policies after being
advised that they were inconsistent with the law.
In other cases, a few states were giving excessive credit for
questionable, vague, or highly variable kinds of activities. These
include seminars not related to content matter, general awards, and
membership in non- academic associations.
Quality Professional Development in the Subject Area--Not ``Cheap
Points on Scorecards''
For example, one principal--upon being told that his state's HOUSSE
provisions might give credit to teachers for a vague range of
``seminars''--made the comment to the State Department of Education
staff that ``I guess I'm going to go out and schedule a bunch of
seminars.'' The principal clearly intended to simply ``rack up some
easy points'' for his teachers on the HOUSSE scorecards.
Before finishing that state visit, the TAC Team made a strong
statement that the law intends to provide the time and the resources to
help teachers receive whatever quality professional development they
need, not simply score cheap points on a scorecard. I asked the
question of the professional development coordinators who were gathered
in that room, ``Would you rather have a principal like this trying to
schedule an arbitrary number of questionable ``seminars'' on his own or
would you rather have a teacher receiving well-planned, quality
professional development in the subject area that he or she teaches?''
To their credit, the State Department of Education made it emphatically
clear to their constituents that they were committed to quality
teachers and intended to strengthen that language before a final
version of the HOUSSE matrix was approved.
The point is, of course, that we should be certain that the state-
designed HOUSSE matrices are truly encouraging helpful, subject-
oriented staff development--and not simply encouraging ``point-
earning'' activities of questionable value.
Common Problems and Areas of Difficult Implementation
We had known that several areas were going to present problems for
some states. After the first few state visits, it became clear that
there were four or five common areas that were creating the greatest
difficulty for states. Without going into detail, these included Rural
Schools, Middle Schools, Special Education, Science, and Social Studies
teachers. (The issues on both science and social studies involve a
question of whether a teacher can be a ``broad field generalist'' or
must be specifically ``highly-qualified'' in each sub-topic of that
subject area.)
To their credit, the USDOE has provided clarification and
significant flexibility in nearly all of these problem areas. I have
provided copies of a USDOE Fact Sheet which summarizes several of these
recent policy changes. Furthermore, on page two of this announcement,
you can see how the Department is encouraging states to use all of
their local, State-based decision-making power--with existing
flexibility--to handle some of these problem areas.
In some of these cases, such as Rural Schools, the Department has
been able to provide more time for these teachers to become highly-
qualified in each subject area that they teach. As you know, in many
rural schools, teachers may have the responsibility for teaching
multiple-subject areas and multiple-grade levels. In other problem
areas, such as the issue of highly-qualified Science Teachers, the
Department is pointing out that states may determine--based on their
current certification requirements--whether to allow science teachers
to demonstrate that they are highly qualified in ``broad field''
science or individual fields of science (such as physics, biology or
chemistry).
There are still problem areas for states that have not yet been
fully addressed by these policy changes or clarifications. Chief among
these may be clarifying how the highly-qualified provisions are applied
to Special Education teachers.
But globally, I would still have to say that the greatest single
frustration to teachers about HQT--and a huge obstacle to a clear and
effective implementation of these provisions--is that teachers have not
received timely and accurate answers from many states and school
districts about their Highly-qualified status.
The expectation of most people is that the majority of current
teachers in the United States are already highly-qualified, and this
process will confirm that. And for those who are not currently highly-
qualified, the goal of this law is to give them the time and resources
to become highly-qualified over the next few years. We should be giving
teachers clear answers and guidance now--and getting them the
professional development they need--rather than waiting until a
manageable training issue becomes a significant problem for teachers
and schools.
I look forward to answering your questions. Thank You
______
[An attachment to Mr. Bailey's statement follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3198.002
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Chairman Boehner. Let me thank our distinguished panel of
witnesses for your excellent testimony today and your
experience and your expertise in how do we get highly qualified
teachers in all of our classrooms.
I just better get this off my chest right now. We've done
these hearings during the development of No Child Left Behind,
and for the last 2 years now we've done hearings on the
implementation of No Child Left Behind, and every time we have
one of these hearings, every time I go out and do a school
visit, I see a 1957 Edsel wired together trying to teach our
nation's kids.
I just can't get over this. It is so frustrating to me to
realize that we're not talking about the auto industry in the
late '70's and early '80's that couldn't make very good cars
that didn't last very long. We're talking about children's
lives. And to think that the situation that we have in far too
many of our schools is dysfunctional and a teacher preparation
system in our country that doesn't produce people who can go
into a classroom and teach, that we're continuing day by day to
ruin a kid's chance at the American Dream.
And I got it off my chest. I feel better now.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Boehner. Let me say that if we do expect to get
the best and brightest into the teaching profession, that we've
got to pay people. We can't violate the laws of economics.
We've tried to do it for 200 years, putting teachers on a
pedestal. Making them look as--they're the pillars of our
community and we look up to them, but, no, we're not going to
pay you. We've taken advantage of people in this profession for
200 years.
So if we're going to attract the best and the brightest
into the field, we've got to pay them. We all know the problems
about how--I don't know, there are a lot of problems about
where you come up with the money, but we know that we've got to
pay them.
And second, I agree with what several of you have said. If
we're going to have good teachers in poorer schools, there
ought to be some incentive. Clearly, when you go into lower
income schools, a school--let's just leave it at that--that the
effort, the work that's required is significantly more than
walking into an ultra white suburban wealthy school district.
We all know it. But why can't we get value-added pay plans in
more of these districts?
But I think the first question I'm going to ask, and I
think I'll ask Ms. McCown, the state of teacher preparation
programs around the country. Tell me something. Give me some
good news of some sort.
Ms. McCown. Well, I think the good news is, is there are
some good preparation programs. I think there are obviously
some excellent teachers who are going into schools.
The Teaching Commission's view is that what's happened in
many cases in states is that the preparation program or the
certification process has created barriers to entry for good
people going into the system. And in doing so, they've created
a series of hoops that people have to jump through which are
not necessarily correlated with good teaching.
So I think it's important to recognize that the point here
is quality, not quantity. And what we have to think about are
ways in which we can determine what it is that a good teacher
needs in order to be a good teacher and then make sure that the
states provide some opportunity for those individuals to go
into teaching.
The other piece with regard to preparation is that colleges
and universities right now, one thing that nobody can argue
with is that the one institution in this country that has an
impact on who goes into teaching are colleges and universities.
That is the place where every single person has to go through
in order to become a teacher. They have to go through a college
or university. Nobody denies or nobody argues with the fact
that an individual needs an undergraduate degree in college to
become a teacher.
But what's happened is that the college and university
presidents more often than not devolve the responsibility down
to the school of education, and I don't mean that in a negative
way, but they devolve the responsibility down to the school of
education with no real indication of what the standards at
schools of education are.
So unfortunately--and this is not across the board, because
there are some good schools of education, and I think Ms.
Mitchell referred to that--but unfortunately, many times
schools of education are not the places that have the highest
standards and they're not the places that recruit the brightest
students.
So what we're saying is that college and university
presidents need to be directly involved in that process. And
frankly, that the Federal Government needs to hold colleges and
universities accountable for that process, and that's whether
they have a school of education or not.
There are vehicles through which an individual can go in
order to become--or go through in order to become a teacher
that may not necessarily require school of education. And I'm
not saying at all that anybody can teach, but I am saying that
there should be opportunities in schools, in colleges and
universities that don't have schools of education where if an
individual decides he or she wants to teach, there should be a
vehicle through which they can go in order to do that, and that
would include mentoring and induction programs at the school
level.
And just let me finish up by saying the school level
mentoring and induction programs are incredibly important, and
that's something that's clearly missing in the process, because
schools at this point are not really held accountable for
ensuring that new teachers who come in and existing teachers
have opportunities for mentoring and induction, and that also
ties into the career ladder piece that we have recommended.
So thank you.
Chairman Boehner. My time has expired. Let me recognize Mr.
Miller.
Mr. Miller. Thank you. And I'd like to just follow up on
that question. I've sort of had a running battle here with the
schools of education over the last 10 years. And, Mr. Landgraf,
I'd like if you could comment on this, because of--on your work
that you're doing with the National Council on Accreditation,
because I think there is real concern.
We asked the schools of education to give us a report how
their graduates do on their state test as to whether or not
they can get their credential in that state, and it's a very
mixed bag. And unfortunately, a number of them tried to game
the system. Because we wanted to know how many graduates passed
the exam, then they redefined ``graduate'' as only those people
who passed the exam, so they had 100 percent passage rate,
although that wasn't the attendees in the schools of education.
So I just wondered, how does your work dovetail with what
Ms. McCown has said?
Mr. Landgraf. Thank you, Congressman. As I testified before
Congressman Castle's Subcommittee the last time I was here,
gaming of the system is a huge problem. It's because the stakes
become so high.
We're working with NCATE to work with states to set
meaningful standards, require rigorous attention to how those
standards are met, and now allow colleges of education or any
other preparatory mechanism to game the system so that it
appears that their graduates are higher.
Now having said that, Congressman, this--
Mr. Miller. Let me stop you right there. Having said that,
when you say you're working with the states, what level of
cooperation and interest are you getting from the states to
achieve that?
Mr. Landgraf. I would describe that as mixed. Some states
do not want anyone outside of their local environment. I would
say that NCATE that represents the colleges of education, is
very forcefully pushing for minimal standards, is very
forcefully interested in having colleges of education support
the concept of minimum certification.
Mr. Miller. So you think that that's going to grow?
Mr. Landgraf. Yes.
Mr. Miller. I mean, the acceptance is going to grow or the
willingness to look at this?
Mr. Landgraf. Yeah. Congressman, I think that the answer to
this is complex. This is a very--
Mr. Miller. No, I appreciate that.
Mr. Landgraf. But if you want colleges of education and the
teaching profession to take more seriously certification, it
needs to be specifically indicated in your initiatives that we
must in fact require certification.
If you're going to require certification, this is a
simplistic sort of output function. You have to pay teachers
more. You have to put more rigor into baseline certification.
You have to hold teachers accountable for their outputs. You
have to provide professional development, and you have to be
willing to stand up and sanction teachers and school districts
that do not meet achievement standards. Once you do that, the
entire system will take more seriously input and output
measures in education.
Let me just close by--Congressman Boehner got a little
emotional, so I will, too. Public education in this country is
all but broken. It's the fundamental foundation of the system
of democracy we live in.
Unless we address the achievement gap, unless we address
the needs of our poorer population in public education, I worry
greatly about the future of this country and the outstanding
democracy that we live in.
Certification of teachers is essential. Training of
teachers is essential, and putting technology and money into
the educational process is my view of the answer.
Mr. Miller. Ross, can you comment on this?
Mr. Wiener. Specifically with respect to teacher
preparation programs, I think that it's important to look at
teacher preparation programs through at least two metrics, and
one is quality and the other is quantity.
The measure of quality that you put into the Higher
Education Act in 1998 looks primarily at the pass rates of
teachers on the certification exams, the licensure exams that
they're going to take before they officially enter the teaching
profession.
I think that while it is important and necessary to look at
those pass rates, that is not sufficient. We have to start to
look at how those teachers then perform in the classroom. We've
got to start to understand better who our most effective
teachers are, what kinds of training experience did they get,
what kinds of ongoing professional development really helped
them.
We can really understand that issue a lot better, but it is
going to take better data systems, and then, as the prior
answers indicated, really ensuring that systems pay attention
to the answers we get from that data.
The other, though, is, is quantity. In certain areas, we
have shortages, in particular in math and science, and with
respect to teachers with very specific skills--helping students
with disabilities and limited English proficient students.
We need to ask teacher preparation programs to respond to
those shortages by making part of their accountability based on
whether they're helping public education meet the needs for
more teachers in those areas.
There are some very good examples of that. In fact, today
the Louisiana Board of Regents is going to release some results
that explain how by asking particular campuses to focus on the
production of teachers in math and science, they really have
gotten a lot more, they have enticed a lot more prospective
teachers to go through those programs, and they are really
helping to meet the needs of Louisiana's public schools.
Another program in the Texas A&M system that's supported
with a Title II Higher Education Act grant has had a similar
system of goals for specific campuses. And the campus
presidents are specifically accountable for what they've done
to meet those goals and for reporting to the chancellors about
their success on helping public education in Texas get more
math, science and bilingual teachers.
So I think on both those areas of quality and quantity, we
can see a lot of improvement in teacher preparation.
Mr. Miller. Thank you very much. My time has expired.
Unfortunately, I have to leave. I don't want this to be
interpreted as a lack of interest, because this is my only
interest. But we have a bill on the floor that I need to
participate in.
So thank you so much for your participation. You've been
very, very helpful to us. Thank you.
Mr. Castle. [presiding] Thank you, Mr. Miller. We do
appreciate your continuing tremendous interest in this subject.
And I next yield 5 minutes to myself, not because I was handed
the chair temporarily, but because I'm next on the list, for my
colleagues who might worry about that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Castle. And I want to explore an area that's a little
bit different than anything we've talked about too much today,
and I don't want to suggest by doing that that I don't think
that teacher preparation and all that goes into that, and
teacher pay and those things, are of huge importance. They are.
I want to talk about what happens after people become
teachers and get some of your viewpoints on that. Because,
frankly, I've not been overwhelmingly impressed by that. And I
still believe that the greatest improvement we can put in
education is not just the new teachers who we're starting to
prepare, but those of you who are in the classroom now, because
next year, some substantial percentage of the teachers are
going to be there again, and that's going to go on for a number
of years, so I worry about that.
And let me just say that I've never personally--and as a
public official, I've been to, well, every public school in my
state and have dabbled in education for almost decades now--and
I've never been impressed by whatever you want to call it, in-
service days, professional days. There may be different names.
Maybe people look at it differently, that I've seen in
Delaware. And some of the ones that I think are probably the
lowest level are the ones I participated in, to give you some
example of my thinking about that.
And I've also worried about the classroom help that
teachers get after they get there, particularly the new
teachers in terms of developing the teaching skills that a
couple of you mentioned. It's not just knowing your content;
it's being able to teach it as well.
It's also obviously the extra programs that they can take
educationally or whatever it may be. There's a lot that goes
into this to give teachers two opportunities: one, to teach
better and to really help them, and to judge them and to make
sure it's going correctly; and second, to give them greater
opportunity to earn more in terms of their educational
development or whatever it may be.
So I'm very interested in taking my 5 minutes and trying to
develop that subject. And I won't call on a particular person.
If you have any ideas about what happens to teachers afterwards
in terms of the in-service days, the educational functions, the
mentoring, that kind of thing, I'd be interested in your points
of view, particularly as they pertain to what we're doing in No
Child Left Behind.
Ms. Mitchell. May I speak on that?
Mr. Castle. Certainly, Ms. Mitchell.
Ms. Mitchell. As a teacher in New York City on Staten
Island, we have ongoing professional development and in-service
training, and I find them valuable, because I find teaching is
an ongoing learning process--that just getting your degree and
going into the classroom with the books that they want us to
guide students by is not the end-all.
Mr. Castle. Tell me about what you have. I mean, you're an
esteemed teacher in a classroom. How many days a year is this,
and what happens in those days?
Ms. Mitchell. I'm sorry. Can you--
Mr. Castle. How many days a year, in the teaching year, do
you do this, and what happens during those days that's of so
much value?
Ms. Mitchell. A lot of days. I'll tell you, it's--twice a
month we have ``lunch and learn'' in our school building, where
teachers sit together and talk about the strengths and
weaknesses that they see in the programs that we're working
with. And we have teachers that will videotape their classroom
and share what they've done, and we will dissect sometimes
what's going on and where we can improve what is going on in
the classroom with the students.
Teacher training is ongoing. I also do math professional
development with teachers where we all have our strengths, and
each one of the teachers that has a strength that could help
someone in a classroom is ongoing. It's not just something that
stops.
Mr. Castle. Is this your school or your school district, or
do you feel it's the entire state of New York?
Ms. Mitchell. I think it's New York. I believe it's New
York, because what I do, during the summer, I do a lot of math
professional development, and there are a lot of teachers that
attend. If there were no teachers that attended, I would
believe that, no, it's not happening in New York.
And I've had the privilege of working in Brooklyn, the
Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island, so I do know that it's going
on throughout New York.
Mr. Castle. That's interesting. Other comments? We'll go to
Ms. McCown, then we'll go over to Mr. Bailey.
Ms. McCown. Congressman Castle, I think that the whole
notion of professional development is an extremely important
one, and I'm speaking now both on behalf of the Commission but
also as a former teacher. I taught in the South Bronx for 6
years.
The need for--
Mr. Castle. I think it's important, too. I'm interested in
how good it is and how we can improve it.
Ms. McCown. OK. OK. I went through a lot of professional
development programs when I was a teacher, and I know it's
changed over the years. But my experience is that professional
development can't give somebody the skills and capacity that
they don't have going into a professional development program.
And the reasons for that are twofold in my view. One is
that often professional development is not research-based, and
it's also not often outcomes-based. So the idea is that it's an
opportunity for an individual to learn about something that he
or she may not know about it, but it's not necessarily--and
again, I'm generalizing here, but I think it's important to
make the point. It's not necessarily based on what's going on
in the classroom or what's actually going to ensure or help
students learn.
So I think the most important aspect of professional
development is it has to be research-based and it has to be
outcomes-based. And I would venture to say, and again, I don't
want to generalize, but I would venture to say that a lot of
the professional development that's going on right now in
schools, and it certainly was the case when I was a teacher, is
not necessarily of the caliber that's going to get us where we
need to be.
And I think it's important for us to assume that, again,
professional development, very important, but it can't give
somebody the capacity that they don't have initially.
Mr. Castle. Right. Mr. Bailey, obviously my time is up, so
if you can give a very brief response, that would be helpful.
Mr. Bailey. Certainly. I think just to reinforce, that some
of your suppositions about in-service are probably true. I
think many teachers would concur that there's a high
variability between a quality content-oriented in-service in
chemistry, physics or bio in my case, and a teaching philosophy
quick little update, you know. Some teachers have said the
passing from life to death in in-service would be
imperceptible.
So I think that if a person is a science teacher, in-
services, at least part of the year, should be delivered from
scientists and engineers. Mathematicians should be in working
with our math teachers. We shouldn't, you know, graduate from
college and go into education and not see someone in our real
content area for 30 years.
So obviously, there's a balance. I'm not pooh-poohing every
teaching philosophy course, but content-oriented in-service
delivered by people that are living and working that in the
professional world is very helpful.
Mr. Castle. Thank you. Mrs. McCarthy is next. I yield to
her for 5 minutes.
Mrs. McCarthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for the
insight that we're receiving, and I have to say, I feel like
Mr. Boehner, I'm sitting here and feeling like I'm going
through deja vu all over again.
I offered a mentoring amendment years ago, and it was
accepted fully by this Committee. Mr. Goodling was the Chairman
at that particular point. And I kept bringing back teaching and
nursing as the same, and they are. No. 1, we didn't get paid
too much. But No. 2, the difference was, to get into a nursing
school, you had to under a psychological test. Certainly you
had to pass your boards. But also, if that school of nursing
did not produce quality nurses through the state boards, that
school of nursing lost their license.
I don't know why we're not thinking about that. You know,
when my son was going to college or applying for college many
years ago, he wanted to go to Syracuse, and what he wanted to
get into, his marks weren't high enough. Now obviously this was
a real shaker for me, but it was advised by the guidance
counsel, oh, just go into the school of teaching. And I said,
well, what does that mean? Well, if you can get into the school
of teaching and you stay a few years and you're doing all
right, you can either be a teacher or maybe we'll get you into
the other program.
Why weren't the standards as high? I don't understand that.
And here's what we're fighting for. But the other thing, too,
because I spend almost every Monday in my schools, and I think
a lot of our teachers are doing a tremendous job under very,
very difficult circumstances, especially in my minority
schools.
You have young people coming out of teaching. Now we're
seeing even older people coming into teaching, and when you
look at the dropout rates of teachers, they're almost exactly
as nursing's, mainly because what they're taught at the
collegiate level, then you get into the field and it's like,
whoa, what am I doing here? Same as nursing, same with
teaching.
So we have to start looking at those things. But we brought
these all up the last time we reauthorized Higher Education.
That's what I don't understand. How come nothing--some things
have changed. But I think one of the other things, too,
especially for many of us, we have large minority areas that
have schools that are falling apart, but we also have teachers
that are dedicated, but they're not taught also to be social
workers and to deal with the family crises that are going on to
the schools, and I think that has to come into the curriculum a
great deal.
It's very, very hard for someone that's dedicated, for
someone that wants to be a teacher and then thrown into a
classroom not understanding the social issues that these kids
are coming from and how to deal with them. Those are the
battlefields that we're looking at.
And I also think it's time for our business community in my
opinion, because the Federal Government will never have enough
money, to really start investing in our schools. A number of my
CEOs on Long Island have done that, guaranteeing scholarships,
especially in the minority schools, so these kids have some
hope. Once we gave them hope, their marks skyrocketed. They're
capable of learning, and they are. And the teachers had new joy
and new love in it.
But I would just love to hear your opinion on the
mentoring. We've heard about it. I don't know why we're not
doing more of it. That's what makes nursing work a little bit
better than teaching, because we have a strong mentoring
program in nursing.
But we have to have the qualities of our colleges, really,
they should be standardized. They really should be, and they
should be accountable for that, because we do give them Federal
money on that. And I would like your opinion on that.
Mr. Landgraf. I agree completely with you. I think the
reason that you're frustrated and public educators are
frustrated and this Committee might be frustrated that we keep
saying the same things in terms of improving the educational
process, is that we need to remember that most of public
education is funded by local real estate taxes, and so that
real estate tax base determines how much mentoring there will
be, how much technology there will be, how much time is spent
on professional development.
The problem with that of course is that the more money, as
Congressman Boehner said, the more money that's in the
district, sometimes there's an inverse relationship with the
need to do the mentoring ed technology. So the lower
socioeconomic cohorts where the achievement gap is most visible
don't get the funding at the local level to implement what
appear to be common sense changes in the educational process.
Mrs. McCarthy. I agree with that. My minority schools have
absolutely no tax base. So the only monies they technically get
are taxing the families that can't afford it, so they vote down
every school bond that is around there. And then when you look
at the formulas, especially in New York State, I don't know how
they do those formulas, because some of my wealthiest schools
will get an awful lot of money, and the poorest of the schools,
not enough to survive on. I don't understand how they do the
New York State formula. But it's complicated, and I know that.
I also know it's political.
Ms. McCown. I'd just like to add that I think one important
aspect of schools of education and holding them accountable,
and my colleague, Ross Wiener, referred to this, but there's
got to be an approach that's outcomes-based, so it's not just
the input in terms of how individuals do on exams, although I
don't think that's unimportant, frankly. I think that's fairly
important.
But I do think that schools of education have to be in a
better position. And in many cases they can do this already.
There's not--the data is lacking in some cases, but there is
data out there, and there are ways of understanding how
teachers are doing as it relates to individual student
performance and student performance on a class basis.
And schools of education have to be held accountable for
outcomes. In other words, how are their students doing who are
going into the schools? And that is where you really get at the
issue of quality; whether or not they're actually succeeding
when they go into schools. Then they can change their
curriculum around the needs based on--
Mrs. McCarthy. And I agree with you. Because you can have
the brightest person in the world go through a school of
nursing, but if they can't apply it to the clinical, they fail
out.
Ms. McCown. Right.
Mrs. McCarthy. Hopefully they fail out before they ever get
onto the floor of a hospital. The same thing for teaching.
Ms. McCown. And again, the student performance piece is
critical here. There are lots of other ways of measuring
performance, but the student performance piece has got to be a
key indicator.
Mr. Wiener. Could I just very briefly follow up on those
comments? I think you've recognized that far too many teachers
are put into the classroom after their programs to sink or swim
far too much on their own.
And I just wanted to provide you with at least one
initiative that's trying to deal with that and try to get
higher education to step up to its responsibility to be a
partner in that, and it's a project at the Carnegie Corporation
of New York that has--it's involving right now 11 schools of
education, and these schools vary tremendously in terms of the
students they serve, their size, their prominence as programs,
but they've all committed to two things; first of all,
measuring their success, as we've heard about, in terms of how
effective their teachers are once they're in the classroom.
But second, they've also committed to really being an
ongoing resource for the teachers that they graduate from their
programs. And so it provides another support for those
teachers. Because sometimes, the supports that are provided by
the district can seem sort of high stakes supports. That is,
you have to acknowledge to your own supervisors that you're
really struggling and that you need help, and that might be
uncomfortable. So the university that graduated you should also
feel some responsibility for helping out.
So I just want to, you know, a couple of members have
acknowledged the frustration of keeping on coming back on these
issues. I think it's important to recognize this is, it needs
to be a long-term commitment.
The 1998 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is
starting to push some advances, and you've taken some steps in
your reauthorization draft to advance that again. The No Child
Left Behind teacher quality provisions are just about 2 years
old. They will start to make a difference, but it will require
sustained leadership from this Committee and from Congress.
Chairman Boehner. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Nebraska, Mr. Osborne.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for
being here today. I know Mr. Bailey mentioned some of the
concerns that you were running into, and I do work with a lot
of rural schools and I do see some regulations that have
softened the blow a little bit regarding multiple subject
teaching and paraprofessionals.
But one thing that I have observed out in a very rural area
and other areas is really concern about the special ed
standards. It seems to be rather universal, and hopefully those
things can be addressed.
Mr. Landgraf, I would like to--I'm assuming you're involved
with SAT. Is that right? And I know that the scoring was
changed, I don't know how long ago, 15 years ago or something
like that, maybe longer. But what do you see happening in terms
of basic understanding on the part of students? Is it going up,
going down? I know for a while it went down. Where do you see
things headed?
Mr. Landgraf. The SAT was re-normed, but it's still
currently the same basic test of verbal reasoning and
mathematical reasoning. But what you're seeing is an increase
on SAT scores, a slight increase in mathematical and verbal
reasoning.
Please remember, of course, that the SAT is perhaps a poor
surrogate for outcomes measures, because the people who take
the SAT are self-selecting students who are planning on going
on to college.
So that the SAT is an important measure, but I don't think
measures appropriately the outcomes of public education in this
country because of the number of people who do not take the
SAT.
Mr. Osborne. I understand, and yet we do see I think a
larger proportion who are going to college, so if they're
headed in the right direction, that's encouraging. I used to
battle SAT all the time when I was a coach and trying to figure
out how we could get a guy to a certain level.
Mr. Wiener, or any others, you mentioned no sanctions and
No Child Left Behind for states not implementing how they
qualify teacher standards. In other words, apparently there's
no specific sanctions. We're saying, well, we think you ought
to do this.
Are you recommending or do any of you recommend any
particular sanctions or any particular methodology of getting
greater compliance on the part of the states?
Mr. Wiener. Well, let me distinguish first, because there
are potential sanctions for failing or refusing to implement
the teacher quality provisions. That is, as a condition of
their Federal funding, states have agreed that they will both
set definitions, set goals for increasing, improving teacher
quality and then publicly report on their progress.
States retain discretion to set the standards that they use
to measure whether they're making that progress, to measure
whether in fact any particular teacher is highly qualified.
They don't have the discretion to simply say, well, we don't
want to undertake that process.
Now it's very important the definitions that states use,
and Congress has not decided to get into qualitatively setting
those standards or demanding particular standards from the
states. But I do think it's important that Congress and the
Department of Education really watch that process carefully.
Because, again, it does matter tremendously how we define who's
qualified to teach.
And so I think that it's important both to show leadership
and to help states to recognize the importance of setting those
standards at a place where they really are sure that the
teachers they have in their classrooms can help students really
meet the state standards.
In far too many cases right now, those standards are simply
too low, and they will need to be raised. And I think that the
Federal process right now, the Federal law, really incentivizes
states to recognize those problems and work on them.
Mr. Osborne. Well, I share some of the concerns you
originally expressed, because in some cases you can set the bar
so low that you're going to look pretty good. And we see a lot
of variance in where that bar is set state by state. It's just
like safe and drug-free schools, you know. Some schools are
safe and they lose three or four kids a year to murder.
And so, anyway, last, we talked a lot about mentoring
today, and I guess I would just like to just ask you who does
it and how does it work? I know you're talking about other
teachers, but teachers are crammed for time. And we hear all
the complaints about, well, we've got all these additional
burdens put on us now. So how do you see that working
effectively? Any of you.
Ms. McCown. I'll just touch on it very quickly. I think the
point here is that teachers can be the best mentors, and what
this allows for is for individuals who are interested in
continuing to teach but also have some ambition to take on
broader responsibility, this offers them an opportunity to work
with their colleagues on refining their craft.
So I think it should be teachers, and those teachers should
be given the time necessary to do that. They should also be
given some increase in salary as a result of taking on
mentoring responsibilities.
The induction process is similar, and that is that schools
have to set up an opportunity so that new teachers who come
into the building do have a chance to be monitored, to be
mentored, to be coached by an experienced, good teacher. And I
think that's really important.
This is not just about somebody who's been in the classroom
or been in the school for 10 years. It's about somebody who has
proved that he or she is a good teacher, and that's based on
student outcome.
So there is a financial issue here, there's no doubt about
it. But I think it's important both in terms of encouraging
bright and ambitious people to stay in teaching, but I also
think it's critically important for new people who go into
teaching. And this really provides a different environment in a
school.
And right now, a lot of the assumption is that people are
going into schools having had a student teaching experience or
some kind of experience that they were offered the opportunity
to get some coaching on. In many cases, that's not the case.
And in fact, schools really--all professions, most other
professions, provide some kind of mentoring and induction for
new employees, and teaching should be similar.
Mr. Osborne. Thank you.
Chairman Boehner. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
California, Ms. Woolsey.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask unanimous
consent for members to be able to submit questions in writing.
Chairman Boehner. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. Woolsey. All right. Thank you very much. I'd like to
ask Mr. Landgraf about--I want to follow up on this mentoring
and induction for new teachers. It's my understanding that in
Japan, the first year a new teacher educated to be a teacher
spends 1 hour teaching without support. The next year, possibly
a half day, and the third year in the classroom alone. What a
difference. We take our new teachers and we throw them into the
toughest, most challenging classes in the country and then
wonder why, one, they fail, and/or two, they say enough of
this. I'm not staying around.
So I want to know, how does No Child Left Behind help
bridge that gap?
Mr. Landgraf. Well, No Child Left Behind helps in that it
sets a standard for teachers and the requirement to produce
outcomes, as Ms. Gaynor talked about.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, OK. I'm going to interrupt you because
we've heard this. I don't need you to repeat this. So the
standard--our teacher doesn't meet the standard because we're
asking too much of that teacher. How is No Child Left Behind
filling that gap?
Mr. Landgraf. And No Child Left Behind will not. At the
local state level--because I happen to agree with you. I lived
in Germany and Switzerland for a number of years, and in both
of those countries you had two distinct levels of teaching
professionals. You had a master teacher and then you had
basically an apprentice teacher.
So I believe that the way we do it is inappropriate. But
the only way to move toward what you're describing is to
provide the schools with more resources and time to allow for
teachers to have the flexibility to have progressive
professional development before they become fully certified
teachers.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, it was my understanding--this is just a
comment--that No Child Left Behind, when we found something
that was not working, would fund the change so that we could,
you know, make it better.
Now I need to ask Mr. Bailey, then, Mr. Wiener, I'll let
you respond, too. I think that, Mr. Bailey, you could talk to
me about how No Child Left Behind is helping schools where
there's a great difference in the number of non-English
speaking children, the number of families in transition that
come in and out of the school, depending on where that school
is located, where there's more special ed kids, where there's--
just needs that many schools don't have.
So now how in evaluating the teacher, how are we taking
into account through No Child Left Behind those challenges?
Mr. Bailey. Well, I think the main thing that you're
referring to is that under No Child Left Behind, really for the
first time in many states--now, granted, some states have been
doing this all along--but nationwide, it has not been the case
that we have been tracking the progress of individual subgroups
of children. We've looked at a gray average. We've always done
that. We've looked at the gray average of how's that school
doing on average.
And, obviously--and, again, I don't want to place blame--
but in some school systems, they've been able to neglect or to
hide small student subgroups in that gray average, and some of
the ones you just mentioned--minority or LEP or even special
ed. In fact, in many states, they've said we don't test. We
don't look. We don't hold accountable. We're going to try to
meet their needs.
Now No Child Left Behind does really for the first time
nationwide say we want to see academic progress with all
subgroups of students. So in that regard, you ask what does No
Child Left Behind do to help them? It shines the light of
accountability on every child in every subgroup.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, OK. But you have a school that has kids
transitioning in and out. That school is--because then they
test lower possibly, and they do. They can't help it. That
school is labeled loser. I want to know how No Child Left
Behind is making, I mean, not putting a label on that school
and those kids?
Chairman Boehner. If the gentlelady would yield.
Ms. Woolsey. What? I don't want your answer.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Boehner. The law, for schools that aren't making
adequate yearly progress--
Ms. Woolsey. Yeah?
Chairman Boehner. It describes those schools as in need of
improvement. And we could help all schools. We could help
people understand that these are not failed schools. They are
schools in need of improvement.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, Mr. Chairman, my schools are telling
me--and they're good schools--that they aren't feeling--they
feel that they're being labeled and not helped as they should
be. And these are not bad schools. I have suburban Marin and
Sonoma County. Good grief.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bailey. Ms. Woolsey, just one comment. There is one
area where I think the Department of Ed just in the last month
has identified, they've heard from schools and from states,
this is a problem for some students that are coming in and
going out.
The 95 percent participation rate requirement for testing
has been amended to allow an averaging over 3 years. In other
words, the complaint from many schools was two kids in that
subgroup were gone that day, and now I'm at 94 percent or 93
percent, not at 95. And so there was just a common sense
allowance of averaging that over 3 years in order to get that
participation rate.
There were some students that were exempted if they
couldn't be there for testing for medical issues, et cetera. So
it's one small area where I think the Department is trying to
respond.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, all right. OK. Mr. Wiener, you wanted to
respond to me.
Mr. Wiener. Yeah. I just wanted to at least provide you
with two specific provisions in the law that are intended to
address exactly the problem that you've raised.
When schools are not meeting their goals for having enough
qualified teachers, the law creates a presumption that that is
a problem of district, school district policy and state policy
that is not responding adequately to the needs of that school.
Every year, principals are supposed to certify in writing
and for the public record whether or not they have the
qualified teachers they need. This is just with respect to
Title I schools. School districts and states are then called on
under the law very specifically to work with those schools and
create plans to help get them more teachers.
And then finally, I just want to mention one very specific
provision, and it's at Section 1111.B.8(c) of the No Child Left
Behind Act. And it calls on states to end the disproportionate
assignment of inexperienced, unqualified and out-of-field
teachers to poor and minority students.
Now we have not seen a lot of progress implementing that
provision, but within it, there is a tremendous amount of
authority and responsibility and just simply moral
responsibility to do better by these kids.
Now we need to see better implementation of that, but the
law itself very specifically responds to it.
Ms. Woolsey. OK. So--
Chairman Boehner. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Woolsey. Well, Mr. Chairman, can I just say what I'm
hearing them say is No Child Left Behind will work if we
implement it. And part of implementing it, as Ms. McCown said,
is funding it.
Chairman Boehner. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Maryland, Mr. Van Hollen.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank
you all for your testimony. In listening to all of you talk
about the teacher quality provisions, I think we all agree that
they're essential provisions.
In recent weeks, in the past couple of months, there have
been some provisions of No Child Left Behind that I think
reasonable people have said where the regulations had
unintended consequences, and the Department of Education has
fixed some of those.
But I also hear some of you saying that in some areas--you
talked about gaming the system--my question is, if you could
rewrite No Child Left Behind based on what you know now, are
there areas where you would be more prescriptive to prevent the
kind of game playing you're talking about, understanding that
we all want to make sure that states have flexibility and are
allowed to be creative, but are there areas that you would
recommend that be revisited where you think in order to get the
intended effects of the teacher quality provisions, we need to
be more prescriptive?
Mr. Bailey. I will give a quick and brief answer rather
than explore everywhere that very good question might go. Right
now if you were to ask teachers and superintendents and state
commissioners of education if they would like NCLB to be more
prescriptive, I could hear it through the walls right now, the
resounding answer.
I think that NCLB has tried to do a balancing act of saying
we expect high standards, we expect some accountability. We're
leaving a lot of the details and criteria up to the states to
develop a lot, really more so than what I imagined when I first
saw the law. And I think to be more prescriptive than that at
this point would be counterproductive.
There clearly are areas that are going to continue, special
education is going to continue to be an issue. We're looking
forward to the reauthorization of IDEA and hopefully some of
the issues addressed in that legislation. But more
prescriptive? I think not.
Mr. Van Hollen. Anybody else? I mean, I know that that's--
you know, I know that's the response that we would get. But one
of the issues with No Child Left Behind which many of you
raised is the inconsistency in terms of the application and
seriousness with which you think some states and local school
districts are taking it. And I guess the question is, No Child
Left Behind was rightly written in a way that provides a great
deal of flexibility, but if you've got certain, you know, parts
of the system that are not taking it seriously, how do you deal
with that? And I think we all agree, and the Chairman made a
very eloquent opening statement and his first question
obviously, you know, underlined a degree of frustration that
even with this law in place, things are not necessarily moving
that quickly, and we need to give it time.
So, you know, you've all been out in the field. As I
understand your answer, I don't know if any of you others
would--is there anything you would change to reinforce the
teacher quality provisions in No Child Left Behind? In the law
itself or the regulations.
Mr. Landgraf. I think part of the problem in answering the
question is that NCLB is an appropriate national Federal
attempt to improve standards, but it's being implemented at a
local level, which is, as you know, what we do in this country.
The problem is that some states have a different view of how to
implement, and some localities have a different view of
implementing. I don't think I would measurably change No Child
Left Behind.
I do think it's appropriate as we gain experience with No
Child Left Behind to do the sensible thing, which is alter some
of the sanctions as we move forward so that we're not
inadvertently creating unintended consequences to the Act.
Mr. Bailey. If I could follow up for one quick second.
Without recommending changes in No Child Left Behind, I wanted
to give some hope that there are several states--I had talked
about the variability in the HOUSSE provisions, and some were
very high and others were taking a lower approach.
At least three states--Tennessee, Kentucky, and Oklahoma--
have included in their HOUSSE provision the option of letting a
teacher say my student achievement data, the increase in test
scores that I'm able to provide these students--I'm not talking
about being held accountable for something that happened at
home or an earlier teacher did. Where is the child when they
come into my classroom? What am I able to do with them over the
course of that year that I have them under my care?
And allowing teachers to use that success of student
achievement data which is clearly objective, that's what we're
headed for--not an indirect measure of mentoring time or this,
but a direct measure of student achievement--I think we're
going to see that more and more around the country without
necessarily having to change No Child Left Behind. That's just
going to happen because the data is there.
Ms. Mitchell. I'm not sure if this qualifies, but listening
to the scoring, constantly stating that is the way that we can
look at teachers and their performance and their
qualifications, there's also another way to look at how the
performance in a classroom and a teacher works, and that is
through portfolios. It's not just through test scores.
All students are not test takers, you know, and then you're
not sure what happens the day the child takes a test. They may
have been performing from the day they walked into that class
ongoing, and then when the test comes, they're low.
I have to share with you that I came from a SIR school that
is off the SIR list and we're now on corrective action. It is
an ongoing process working together with teachers to get the
better from our students.
I really--I have a difficult time sitting here as a teacher
listening to test scores, and it's not the end all. And we do
have a very transient population. And as Ms. Woolsey stated
earlier, that you're looking at that school as that's a bad
school, and many teachers did look at our school as we weren't
doing our job, and we worked very hard. And to get off the SIR
list, I really felt that was an achievement that our school
worked on together--mentoring and professional development. I
just don't think scores are the end all, and we have to look at
ways to share how the teacher is working and their quality of
work that they're putting forth in that classroom.
Chairman Boehner. The chair recognizes the gentlelady from
Georgia, Ms. Majette.
Ms. Majette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'd like to thank
all of the witnesses for being here today and for your
dedicated service and the work that you're doing to ensure that
every child is able to have a good education. And I certainly
appreciate particularly, Ms. Mitchell, your work in the public
schools in Staten Island.
I'm a graduate of the public schools of Brooklyn, New York
and probably quite a long time before you began teaching. But I
certainly appreciate the challenges that you have in terms of
the diversity in the area and being able to persevere despite
the low pay and the different circumstances that you're
confronted with.
So I'd like for you just to speak for a moment about, in
light of all of that and in light of your experience, what is
it that we can do as a Committee, as a body, as a society, to
encourage more people to go into teaching and to support those
teachers once they get there?
And what I hear in my district--I represent Georgia's
Fourth District, which is suburban Atlanta, and it's the most
culturally, probably, and also is economically diverse district
in the state of Georgia. But what I hear from the teachers is
that they want to be involved and they want to have greater
education. They want to be able to have better training and to
expand their horizons, but they don't have two things. One is
time, and the other is money.
In some of the areas they're saying that they're required
to pay for classes as opposed to getting support for those--
financial support for those classes, and they spend so much
time in the classroom that they almost feel as though they
don't have time to take off or they're not given time to take
off to do the additional training that would be helpful to them
and necessary in some ways under the Act.
So how do you think we ought to be able to address that
issue and to inspire people to go into teaching as well as
giving them the support that they need once they are in that
environment?
Ms. Mitchell. Honestly, that's a difficult question. I can
share with you that my husband is kind of tired of me going to
professional development on end, and when I come home, my books
are all over the bed. And he's wondering, does he have a wife.
I really love educating. I really don't know the answer to
how we can get other educators to come into the field. I know
that we have really looked bad upon this election year.
Teachers are not doing their job. We have low performing
schools. Students are coming out not reading, not writing. So
it's really difficult to share that I know that coming from my
household raising three daughters, that each one of them have
attended college, that that is only one way that I could talk
to other people around me to try to get them to want to come
into education.
We have Take Our Daughters To Work Week, but, you know,
they're coming out of the school thinking that other jobs are
more important. So I'm not sure how we can look at teachers as
being important and bringing daughters or sons to work. That's
a very difficult question for me to try to summarize and figure
out a way to bring more people into the field.
Ms. Majette. Thank you. Ms. McCown?
Ms. McCown. A couple of things. One, it obviously is a
challenge to recruit people to go into teaching now because,
one, it's not a field that is necessarily viewed as
prestigious. And so people who are young and ambitious and want
to be recognized for their good work don't view teaching as a
place that they can do that. And I think that's critically
important.
I also think that the whole notion of not really being able
to distinguish yourself in teaching is difficult. We all, as
teachers, I think we all benefited greatly from the
gratification you get of when young people say to you, I've
learned or a lot, or when you have a great class. There is
nothing quite like the feeling.
But as a whole, teachers, the teaching profession is not a
profession that recognizes excellence. It's not a profession
that really says to somebody who is young and ambitious, if you
want to go into a field where you're going to be recognized and
you're going to be honored for the work that you've done both
figuratively and literally via money, it tends to turn people
off.
And I think on the flip side when good teachers are right
next to individuals who may have been teaching for 20 years or
so but are not doing a very good job and that's obvious, that's
also a turn off. So I think those are a couple of things that
can be dealt with.
Chairman Boehner. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney.
Mr. Tierney. I thank the chair. Thank you for having this
hearing, and thank all of you for testifying here.
I wonder sometimes if all we're trying to do at the Federal
level, if we're ever going to be successful so long as
everything that we put in our statutes requires implementation
at the local level.
Many of the things that were said here today I think
generally we get the feeling that people want to move in that
direction, but we wind up with a funding problem on the local
level is one thing, and with a variation of feeling about how
much they want to implement, depending from district to
district.
Somebody talked earlier about have better distribution of
qualified teachers to more challenging schools or districts. We
don't put any teeth in this law to do that. We just hope that
local communities are going to want to do that or states are
going to want to do that, and we don't see an awful lot of that
happening.
But we want to pay teachers more. But we then rely on a
system where property tax picks up a lot of the funding of
local schools, and people don't want to override limitations on
their property tax laws.
How are we going to overcome any of these things unless we
put some stronger incentives or more funding at the Federal
level or some requirements and money at the Federal level on
some of these? How are we going to overcome the fact that we
don't seem to have anything except a very local implementation
of these and sometimes hits and sometimes misses?
Mr. Landgraf. If I could answer. I think you might be
harsher on yourself than is necessary. I think No Child Left
Behind is an extraordinary initiative. It took great courage on
the part of the Congress.
I think it's important to recognize that this is a very new
initiative in public education. We're beginning to see some
meaningful changes occur at the local level. And as long as we
are not going to Federalize our national public education
system, you have to rely on localities to implement.
But No Child Left Behind is an extraordinary initiative,
because it provides very clear outcome requirements. So my
answer to you, Congressman, would be I think in the near term--
not forever, not, you know, we don't have to wait too long--
you're going to see meaningful changes in public education.
Mr. Tierney. Do you think we're going to see teachers
getting paid at the levels we expect them to be paid in order
to make this profession a desirable one for people entering the
job market?
Mr. Landgraf. Yeah. I think as teacher shortages become
more and more a reality in this country, as the outcomes
measures that are being required are going to be more and more
dictating of real estate taxes, you're going to see teachers
get paid for outcomes-measured incentives and higher salaries
for entry-level teachers.
Mr. Chairman, I apologize, but I need to leave for another
appointment. So thank you very much for the opportunity to
testify.
Mr. Tierney. Thank you. Let me also--talking about some of
the requirements on teaching, there's a bill that we had put
together called the Alternative Paths to Teaching that tried to
meet the level of proficiency in a teacher by having them
make--make sure that they have a proficiency level in their
subject matter, get some mentoring when they start teaching,
get some professional development, but also requires them to
take some instruction in pedagogy and, you know, methodology
before they get into the classroom.
In Mr. Gerstner's report, ``Call To Action: Teaching At
Risk,'' they talk about programs where liberal arts graduates
without formal education coursework are put into the schools
and they say that they are in turn doing as well or better than
other teachers, never having had the pedagogy, the methodology
course or whatever.
What are your feelings on that? Do we need to take
alternative path teachers and give them some background in
methodology and pedagogy in the classroom, or do we not?
Mr. Wiener. If I could try and answer that, and in part it
goes back to your last question, I think moving forward we need
to--public education needs to become much more sophisticated
about distinguishing between effective teachers and ineffective
teachers.
Until you can do that, you cannot answer the question that
you've posed. And it's an important question. It's one we need
to begin to answer. What training and experiences, what
background in pedagogy really is necessary to help a teacher
really teach students to high standards?
Mr. Tierney. So we don't know that with all the work that
we've done and all the research that's been out there, we can't
answer that basic question yet?
Mr. Wiener. The answer, I'm afraid, is no. We've gotten
much better at recognizing that there is in fact tremendous
variability in how effective teachers are. That recognition
itself is an advancement in the profession. Now we really do
need to extend that work and to unpack what's inside those
results and to really understand better who our best teachers
are and what went into helping them be as good as they can be.
There are some places that are doing that. Tennessee has
perhaps the most advanced system, the value-added assessment
system in Tennessee. There are other districts and states that
are working toward that. The Ohio initiative that I mentioned
will be coming to understanding that a lot better.
And I think one place that Congress could really advance
this agenda is in both demanding value-added data systems and
then in supporting their development and implementation.
Chairman Boehner. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
New Jersey, briefly.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. And briefly, since the
bells are ringing, I would just certainly like to commend the
panel. What I heard I was very impressed with. I would
certainly like to commend the last lady standing who is the
only teacher here and to be there in a classroom. That's
tremendous. I'm a former elementary and secondary school
teacher, and I do know, and I would probably still be there if
I didn't get elected to Congress.
But the system, when you're good, you know, and you're
still in a classroom--I have a daughter who has been teaching
in the same school for 18 years. And when you're good, people
wonder, well, what's wrong with you? You're still teaching the
same class. My daughter has to defend herself for still being
the kindergarten teacher at Camden Street School, where she's
been all these years.
And the system--and it's just natural. I mean, here we have
Mr. Bailey, and the little bit I've heard, I can certainly
understand why he was the National Teacher of the Year. And he
would be fantastic in some little Virginia classroom. But, you
know, he heads, you know, national projects.
So the system itself, a good teacher becomes a department
head, assistant department head, moves up through the system,
assistant secretary, assistant superintendent. So somehow we've
got to do this value-added to the good classroom teacher
because, to be honest, I bet you enjoyed that little
classroom--I'm not going to put words in your mouth. But I know
I enjoyed the classroom more than I did when I started getting
bumped upstairs.
And so we've got to somehow figure out how we can put the
status, continued achievement of classroom teacher. Shouldn't
feel that something's wrong with you because you're not the
principal. I mean, we're going to have to have principals and
we're going to have to have people leading national programs
like you are. But somehow we've got to enhance the local
classroom teacher.
Finally, listening to--I'm in New Jersey so I get the New
York radio and TV, and the dilemma with Mayor Bloomberg saying
there's going to be a test for third graders. If you don't pass
it, you stay back. Parents are talking about boycotting. Kids
are saying they couldn't sleep for a week. This whole
traumatizing of these third graders, you know. We've got to
figure out a better way of it than just that 1 day means all.
I think there's a lot of things that have to happen with
this No Child Left Behind. I think it's a good concept. But
when it was reported that there's a $25,000 per student in some
part of Westchester County as opposed to $12,000 in another
part of the same county, and in New Jersey, Cherry Hill had
about $12,000 compared to Camden, which was $6,000, how in the
world are you going to be able to have this equal outcomes?
The charter schools in New Jersey, by law you can't have
more than 18 students in a classroom. And I said, fantastic.
Why don't we do it for the public school system? Oh, well, we
can't afford that.
So we've got to be able--and I know time is running out.
We'll hear another bell. Don't worry. We can make it. Let me
just say I appreciate the opportunity to get that on the record
and certainly command all of you for being in education.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Boehner. Thank you, Mr. Payne. As you heard, we
have got five votes on the House floor. I thank all the
witnesses for your excellent testimony and thank all of those
of you in the audience who have come to participate today.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows:]
Statement of the American Occupational Therapy Association, Submitted
for the Record
The American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) submits this
statement for the record of the April 21, 2004 hearing. We appreciate
the opportunity to provide this information regarding the relationship
of qualified occupational therapy/related services personnel to
improved academic achievement for all students, including students with
disabilities. It is important for Congress to monitor how well federal
education law meets its objective of holding states and schools
accountable for improving educational outcomes. The topic of this
hearing is critical to a clearer understanding of the factors which
lead to better academic achievement.
The recent enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the
pending reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) highlight Congressional concerns about children's education.
NCLB and IDEA are expected to work in concert to help schools meet the
learning and behavioral needs of children with disabilities. A major
concern under both NCLB and IDEA is how to best educate students with
and without disabilities to high standards and how to appropriately
measure their progress. A key issue is the need for well trained and
qualified school personnel who are able to appropriately use effective
instructional practices and other supports to help children learn.
AOTA agrees with the goal that students should be taught by well
trained teachers. It is well recognized that high quality personnel are
directly related to improved student outcomes. AOTA also believes that
other school personnel, such as occupational therapists, have an
important role in helping schools improve student achievement.
Occupational Therapy Services under IDEA and NCLB
Occupational therapists provide critical supports and services to
teachers and for students and their families. Referred to as related
services personnel under IDEA and pupil services personnel under NCLB,
occupational therapists help schools address barriers to learning and
improve student behavior. Services and supports are provided for
children, parents and school staff in a variety of ways, and include
identification, evaluation and assessment; design and provision of
classroom and testing accommodations; consultation with educators on
modifying instructional strategies, classroom routines and
environments; and, collaboration with general and special education
teachers, the community, and parents.
School-Related Occupational Therapy Personnel Issues
Discussions about school-based occupational therapy personnel
issues usually center around three general areas: preparation and
ongoing professional development, credentialing, and recruitment and
retention. AOTA frequently hears from its members and state and local
education agency officials, school administrators, and parents on such
issues as difficulty recruiting (and retaining) therapists, preparation
for practice in schools and early intervention programs, inadequate
salaries, high caseloads and other working conditions (including
inadequate time for planning and collaboration), and need to use
effective interventions and practices. AOTA believes it is important to
note that these issues mirror those raised about teachers.
Data specific to occupational therapy services in schools are
limited, especially with regard to personnel issues. In a May 2003
paper, the federally-funded Center on Personnel Studies in Special
Education (COPPSE) found that occupational therapy personnel issues are
complex and often convoluted.\2\ Occupational therapists follow a
rigorous, well-established process for entry into the profession. They
must complete specialized entry-level training\1\ in occupational
therapy, pass a national certification examination, and meet applicable
licensure, certification or other comparable requirements in each State
before they can practice. Occupational therapy practice is regulated by
all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Each of
these jurisdictions determines the requirements for not only what
constitutes occupational therapy, but also who can provide therapy
services in that jurisdiction. These state requirements apply to all
settings in which occupational therapy services are provided in a given
state, thereby establishing a consistent set of standards across
settings. These entry-level requirements are intended to ensure that
occupational therapy providers are fully qualified, thus ensuring the
highest quality of services for students.
AOTA is now hearing that some local education agencies (LEAs) are
beginning to apply NCLB's ``highly qualified'' requirements to related
services personnel. This would require school-based occupational
therapists and other related services personnel to meet additional
requirements. Given the nature of occupational therapy preparation,
AOTA does not believe these additional requirements are necessary in
order to deem occupational therapists ``highly qualified.''
Other data indicate continued shortages of occupational therapists.
An October 2002 report by Project FORUM at the National Association of
State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE) analyzed related services
data collected by states\2\. The analysis found that of the 30 states
that collected data on occupational therapy, 23 states collected
information on the number of OT vacancies. The analysis did not
identify how these data are used by state education agencies (SEAs).
Another study funded by the Office of Special Education Programs
(OSEP), the Study of Personnel Needs in Special Education (SPeNSE),
found that, nationally, nearly 800 occupational therapy positions went
unfilled in the 1999-2000 school year\3\. SPeNSE reports state that it
is difficult to separate discussions about personnel quality from
discussions of quantity/adequate supply because, ``as shortages worsen,
administrators are forced to hire less qualified individuals.''\3\
State reported data to the U.S. Department of Education, which is used
in the Department's Annual Reports to Congress on the Implementation of
IDEA, illustrate this point: for the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 school
years, 188 and 143 individuals (respectively) who were employed as
occupational therapists in schools were not fully certified. \4\ It
should be noted that prior to its 23rd Annual Report to Congress
(2001), the Department included data on vacant/unfilled OT positions--
they no longer do so. Absent better data, it is difficult to ascertain
to what extent shortages continue to exist and in which states and
geographic locations.
AOTA believes there is a significant need for more targeted and
focused research on occupational therapy issues in educational
settings. While SEAs are required to ensure that related services are
available little is known about the number of children with
disabilities that receive related services and the type and amount of
services received.\2\ COPSSE identified a number of critical unanswered
questions in its report\1\. These include, ``what are the `real'
vacancies for occupational therapy practitioners in the schools? Are
all students who need occupational therapy services receiving them?
What factors support or hinder recruitment and retention of
occupational therapists in schools? What are effective recruitment and
retention strategies for occupational therapists entering the
profession and schools as a work environment? What can local education
agencies do to support the recruitment and retention of occupational
therapists in education settings?'' Additional studies on these and
other questions can help ensure an adequate supply of well-trained
personnel that will benefit schools and all students.
What is Occupational Therapy?
Occupational therapy is a vital health and rehabilitation service,
designed to help individuals participate in important every day
activities, or occupations. Occupational therapy services address
underlying performance skills, including motor, process, communication
and interaction skills to assist in the correction and prevention of
conditions that limit an individual from fully participating in life.
For children with disabling conditions and other educational needs,
occupational therapy can help them to develop needed skills within the
context of important learning experiences and to perform necessary
daily activities such as getting dressed for physical education (PE) or
eating lunch with other students, and help them get along with their
peers at school. Occupational therapy services can help identify
strategies for teachers and families to use to facilitate appropriate
reading and writing development.
Occupational therapy practitioners have the unique training to
assist individuals to engage in daily life activities throughout the
lifespan and across home, school, work, play, and leisure environments.
Services may be provided during only one period of the child's life or
at several different points when the child is having difficulties
engaging in his or her daily school occupations, such as when they are
faced with more complex demands in the classroom resulting from
increased emphasis and reliance on written output. Occupational therapy
services may be provided in the family's home; at school; and in the
community, such as day care and preschool programs, private clinics,
and vocational programs.
Occupational therapy evaluation determines whether an individual
would benefit from intervention. The evaluation looks at the
individual's strengths and needs with respect to daily life function in
school, home and community life, focusing on the relationship between
the client and their performance abilities, the demands of the
activity, and the physical and social contexts in which the activity is
performed. The findings of the occupational therapy evaluation inform
the team of the need for intervention. Occupational therapy
practitioners use purposeful activities to help individuals bridge the
gap between capacity to learn and full and successful engagement in
education, work, play, and leisure activities.
For example, occupational therapy for infants and young children
may include remediation of problem areas, development of compensatory
strategies, enhancement of strengths, and creation of environments that
provide opportunities for developmentally appropriate play and learning
experiences. Services for the school-aged child are intended to help
them be successful in school. Intervention strategies may focus on
improving the child's information-processing ability, academic skill
development such as handwriting, and ability to function in the school
environment. For adolescents, the occupational therapy intervention
focus is on preparation for occupational choice, improving social and
work skills, and learning how to create or alter the environment to
maximize their productivity.
Occupational therapy is a health and rehabilitation service covered
by private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, workers' compensation,
vocational programs, behavioral health programs, early intervention
programs, and education programs. AOTA represents nearly 40,000
occupational therapists, occupational therapy assistants, and students.
We thank you, once again, for the opportunity to submit our comments
for the record.
REFERENCES
1. Beginning January 2007 professional entry will be at the
postbaccalaurate level.
2. Swinth, Y, Chandler, B, Hanft, B, Jackson, L, Shepherd (2003).
Personnel issues in school-based occupational therapy: Supply and
demand, preparation, certification and licensure. University of
Florida: Center on Personnel Studies in Special Education. (COPSSE
Document No. IB-1). Available at www.copsse.org.
3. Mueller, E & Tschantz. J (2002). Related services data
collected by states. Project FORUM Quick Turn Around. Available at
http://www.nasdse.org/FORUM/PDF%20files/related_svcs_data.pdf
4. Carlson, E, Brauen, M, Klein, S, Schroll, K, Willig, S (2002).
SPeNSE Key Findings. Available at http://ferdig.coe.ufl.edu/spense/.
5. Office of Special Education Programs. Part B annual report
tables. Retrieved from http://www.ideadata.org/arc_toc3.asppartbPEN on
5/4/04.
______
Letter from the Higher Education Consortium for Special Education,
Submitted for the Record
April 26, 2004
Chairman John Boehner
Ranking Member George Miller
Committee on Education and the Workforce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC
Dear Chairman Boehner and Ranking Member Miller:
Last week you held a hearing titled ``The Importance of Highly
Qualified Teachers.'' We would like to submit the attached information
to be included in the hearing record. The attachment is our
recommendation for the definition of a ``highly qualified special
education teacher'' and our rationale for the definition.
HECSE is comprised of 54 universities with doctoral programs in
special education. Our member institutions are at the forefront of
teacher education, research and development in special education. We
work extensively with local and state education agencies to ensure that
teachers and other professionals have the skills they need to provide a
free appropriate public education to all students with disabilities.
We cannot overstate the importance of ensuring that every special
education student has a teacher who is fully competent in special
education and in the content matter that they are teaching. We believe
our recommendation represents a good balance between the special
education skills and the content skills required, while bearing in mind
that teacher training for initial certification is time limited. We
know that there are some who say that we cannot afford to meet high
standards for special education teachers--that such standards will
exacerbate the shortage. In reality, lower standards have increased
teacher attrition thereby worsening the teacher shortage. We take the
position that we cannot afford NOT to meet high standards for special
education teachers.
No Child Left Behind wisely and rightly requires accountability for
student achievement for special education students. With such an
expectation comes an obligation to ensure effective instruction.
Effective instruction can only be provided by a teacher who is skilled
in both special education and the content matter that they are
teaching.
Thank you for considering our views. If you would like additional
information or have questions, please contact Jane West at 202-289-3903
or [email protected].
Sincerely,
Herbert J. Rieth, Professor and Chair
Department of Special Education
University of Texas
HECSE President
***
Recommendations for the Reauthorization of the Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act Related to the Application of ``Highly
Qualified'' to Special Education Teachers
Introduction
HECSE recommends that the reauthorization of IDEA include language
stipulating that special educators be subject to the highly qualified
standards comparable to the NCLB Act, and that all special education
teachers hold full state certification or licensure in their respective
fields. Attached is our recommendation for legislative language that
parallels that used in the NCLB Act. A brief rationale for this
language follows.
Determining a definition for ``highly qualified'' in special
education is not an easy fit in relation to the NCLB provision, largely
because special education teachers must develop a set of highly
specialized skills that can be applied to any core academic content
area. Thus, in contrast to academic content competence, special
education competence cannot be measured using a paper and pencil test.
More specifically, special education teachers are expected to have
highly specialized knowledge, skills, and expertise, as they
continuously assess student performance to adjust the learning
environment, modify instructional methods, adapt curricula, use
positive behavior supports and interventions, and select and implement
appropriate accommodations to meet the individual needs of students.
Special educators develop such expertise by completing rigorous
preparation programs which include extensive, closely supervised field
experiences. Before entering the profession, these professionals must
demonstrate their competence through rigorous outcome measures which
include performance in schools working with students with disabilities.
With this in mind, we do not support the option of certifying or
licensing special education teachers by having them pass a test,
comparable to the NCLB requirement for content area specialists.
Rather, all special education teachers should be required to complete a
rigorous preparation program, and demonstrate in field settings the
highly specialized knowledge and skills that are needed to effectively
meet the needs of students with disabilities and ensure that these
students make adequate yearly progress.
A second consideration relates to our perspective that teachers of
students with disabilities at the secondary level should not be held to
a lower standard than their general education counterparts. If special
education teachers have the sole responsibility for providing
instruction for students with disabilities in core academic content
areas in secondary schools, their qualifications should be no less than
those of general educators. However, as was noted previously, special
education is not content area expertise; rather, it is knowledge and
skills that are needed to meet the individual needs of students and can
be used at any developmental level. With this in mind, it is our
perspective that it is neither practical nor necessary to require that
ALL middle and secondary level special education teachers demonstrate
mastery of an academic content area, in addition to their mastery of
knowledge and skills in special education. For example, the role of
many secondary special education teachers is to work with content area
specialists to ensure that students with disabilities successfully
master state designated standards. Thus, the special education
teacher's responsibilities for student learning can often be
effectively and efficiently delivered through a consultative or co-
teaching role with general education teachers who are highly qualified
in the core subject area, without supplanting a general educator's role
in the subject matter area. Requiring that all special education
teachers demonstrate mastery of academic content areas when they work
in a consultative or co-teaching role with highly qualified general
education teachers is not a reasonable requirement1. Furthermore, such
a requirement would unnecessarily result in a significant increase in
the shortage of highly qualified special education teachers in
secondary schools.
With these ideas in mind, we offer the following language for
addressing the need for Highly Qualified special education teachers in
the reauthorized IDEA.
1. This perspective is in keeping with the final regulations for
NCLB regarding special education teachers, which states:
Special educators providing instruction in core academic
subjects must meet the highly qualified standard under NCLB. However,
special educators who do not directly instruct students on any core
academic subject or who provide only consultation to highly qualified
teachers of core academic subjects in adapting curricula, using
behavioral supports and interventions, and selecting appropriate
accommodations do not need to meet the same ``highly qualified''
subject-matter competency requirements that apply under the NCLB Act to
teachers of core academic subjects (see 34 CFR Part 200, December 2,
2002)).
***
HECSE Proposed Language for IDEA with regard to Highly Qualified
Special Education Teachers
SEC. 1119. QUALIFICATIONS FOR TEACHERS AND PARAPROFESSIONALS.
(10) Highly qualified- Special education teachers must develop a
set of highly specialized skills that can be applied to any core
academic content area. These skills provide special education teachers
with the expertise to continuously assess student performance to adjust
the learning environment, modify instructional methods, adapt
curricula, use positive behavior supports and interventions, and select
and implement appropriate accommodations to meet the individual needs
of students with disabilities. All special education teachers must
complete a rigorous preparation program, and demonstrate in field
settings the highly specialized knowledge and skills that are needed to
effectively meet the needs of students with disabilities and ensure
that these students make adequate yearly progress. The term `highly
qualified' for special education teachers means the following:
(A) All special education teachers- When used with respect to
any public elementary school or secondary school special
education teacher teaching in a State, means that the teacher
holds at least a bachelor's degree and that--
(i) the teacher has obtained full State certification or
licensure as a special education teacher through a State-
approved special education teacher preparation program
(including certification or licensure obtained through
alternative routes), and passed the State teacher special
education licensing examination, and holds a license to teach
in the State as a special education teacher, except that when
used with respect to any teacher teaching in a public charter
school, the term means that the teacher meets the requirements
set forth in the State's public charter school law;
(ii) the teacher has not had certification or licensure
requirements waived on an emergency, temporary, conditional, or
provisional basis; and
(iii) the teacher demonstrates knowledge of special education
and the teaching skills necessary to teach children with
disabilities through rigorous written and performance outcome
measures.
(B) When used with respect to--
(i) a special education teacher who is new to the profession,
means that the teacher--
(I) meets the applicable standards in subparagraph (A); and
(II) has demonstrated, by passing a rigorous State test,
subject knowledge and teaching skills in reading, writing,
mathematics, and other areas of the basic elementary school
curriculum (which may consist of passing a State-required
certification or licensing test or tests in reading, writing,
mathematics, and other areas of the basic elementary school
curriculum. Applies to elementary special education teachers);
and
(III) meets the highly qualified standard of the NCLB Act in
any core academic subject areas in which s/he is the primary
teacher for middle school or high school students with
disabilities (applies to middle and high school special
education teachers).
(IV) the term ``primary teacher'' means that the special
education teacher has primary or sole responsibility for
teaching middle school or high school students with
disabilities in a core academic subject area, and does not have
a regular education teacher who is highly qualified in the
particular core academic content area working to provide
consultative or co-teaching services.
(C) VETERAN SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS- When used with
respect to a special education teacher who is not new to the
profession, means that the teacher--
(i) has met the applicable standard in subparagraph (A); and
(ii) meets the highly qualified standard of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (Section 9101 (23)) in any
core academic subject area in which s/he is the primary teacher
for middle school or high school students with disabilities, as
defined in subparagraph (B) (III) and (IV).
(D) Consultative services
(i) In general--Notwithstanding subparagraphs (A) through
(C), when used with respect to a special education teacher who
provides only consultative services to a highly qualified
regular education teacher (as the term highly qualified is
defined in section 9101(23) of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act of 1965), means that the teacher meets the
requirements of subparagraph (A).
(ii) Consultative services--As used in clause (i) with
respect to special education teachers, the term ``consultative
services'' means services that adjust the learning environment,
modify instructional methods, adapt curricula, use positive
behavior supports and interventions, and select and implement
appropriate accommodations to meet the individual needs of
children. The special education teacher may provide such
services in a co-teaching or other consultative role.
(iii) Consultative services--As used in clause (B) (i) (IV)
with respect to regular education teachers, the term
``consultative services'' means services related to the content
area expertise of a highly qualified teacher in a core academic
area. The regular education teacher may provide such services
in a co-teaching or other consultative role.
______
Statement of Stephanie L. Norby, Executive Director, Smithsonian Center
for Education and Museum Studies, Smithsonian Institution
On behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, I would like to thank the
Members of the Committee for the opportunity to submit testimony on the
Highly Qualified Teacher Provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act. I
am particularly honored to offer suggestions that may aid state and
local officials as they grapple with how to meet the standards set
forth in this law.
As is reflected in the provisions of No Child Left Behind, teachers
play an integral role in the education of our nation's children. In
particular, Title II of the Act--Preparing, Training and Recruiting
High Quality Teachers and Principals--recognizes that one of the ways
that new teachers can become great teachers, and veteran teachers can
become even better teachers, is through meaningful and ongoing
professional development. However, the challenge of ensuring that all
students have teachers with superior content knowledge and exemplary
classroom skills is one that local school districts should not have to
meet on their own. Rather a broad partnership between schools,
universities, businesses, and nonprofit organizations is essential to
ensure that these needs are met.
While schools of education at colleges and universities can and
should play a central role in the training and professional development
of teachers, as an Institution devoted to the ``increase and diffusion
of knowledge'' the Smithsonian is uniquely positioned to provide the
nation's teachers with additional training opportunities. With 17
museums, 9 research centers and 140 affiliate institutions nationwide,
the breadth and depth of our presence in the American scholarly and
cultural community equips us with an unparalleled array of resources,
experience, and knowledge that we are eager to share with the nation's
educators. This commitment is demonstrated through the recent
inauguration of the Smithsonian's Strategic Plan for Education, a five-
year blueprint that recognizes our unique mandate to engage and inspire
all Americans with our research, collections, and expertise. Through
our websites, publications, and programs, the Smithsonian is already
working with beginning teachers and experienced educators alike to
offer them more ways to reach and engage their students.
The Committee may be interested to learn that the Smithsonian is
already offering professional development opportunities to teachers on
a regular basis. From daylong seminars on how to integrate primary
sources into the curriculum, to three-year partnerships to improve the
teaching of American History, the Smithsonian is actively sharing with
teachers its wealth of knowledge and expertise.
Yet the Smithsonian is not only teaching these teachers, it is
learning from them as well. From the educators who have participated in
our professional development programs, we have discovered a great deal
about the kinds of things that teachers want and need to learn. The
Smithsonian is working diligently to respond to these needs and is
eager to share our experience with teachers from across the country,
through programs based here in Washington, D.C., as well as through our
national outreach efforts. As the Committee examines the ways in which
states are implementing the new Highly Qualified Teacher requirements,
the Smithsonian would like to share with you some of the lessons we
have learned about what professional development programs can and
should do for teachers and how museums like the Smithsonian can provide
additional resources and expertise in this area.
First, we have learned that teachers want to be treated as
professionals and be considered a part of the scholarly community. Thus
the Smithsonian strives to treat teachers as ``lifelong learners'' who
need exposure to the latest research and scholarship in their academic
disciplines to stay current and to stay inspired. As the home of some
of the world's foremost experts in history, science, and art, the
Smithsonian scholarly community can provide classroom teachers with a
first-hand look at the newest discoveries and discussions, enhancing
their ability to provide students with up-to-date information and
ideas. For example, in partnership with College Board Advanced
Placement, the Smithsonian offers seminars during which teachers and
curators together examine historical evidence--from skeletons uncovered
at Jamestown to portraits of our founding fathers. At the National
Science Resource Center, a partnership between Smithsonian and the
National Academy of Sciences, teachers learn how to teach science and
technology to elementary and middle school students. These courses help
science teachers understand the nature of scientific inquiry and its
central role in science, as well as use the skills and processes of
scientific inquiry in the classroom.
Teachers who participate in our programs also tell us that they
need more training on how to engage students with diverse needs,
learning styles, languages, and backgrounds. Since museums like the
Smithsonian are experienced at making complex concepts accessible to
diverse audiences from an array of backgrounds, skill levels, and ages,
this is a natural need for us to fill. In particular, museums can
provide teachers with the know-how and the materials to incorporate
primary sources and objects into their existing curricula, making
learning more visual, more tangible, and more fun for all students, but
especially those with limited English proficiency or developmental
disabilities. This expertise in how to use real things to bring alive
ideas, processes, and information is something that museums like the
Smithsonian are uniquely qualified to offer. For instance, as part of
long-term partnerships with school districts, the Smithsonian has
worked with Montgomery County Public Schools (MD) and Charlotte
Mecklenburg Schools (NC) to co-develop social studies curricula to
include hands-on materials. Moreover, several school districts each
year assign teachers-in-residence to work with Smithsonian educators to
design collections-based programming for school groups.
Museum based professional development programs also can foster
learning communities in which teachers can look beyond school walls for
ideas and inspiration. As a result, the Smithsonian often serves as the
meeting place for teachers from across the country, providing them a
chance to learn from one another, share ideas and techniques, and build
lasting collaborations. For example, each year the Smithsonian hosts
``Teacher's Night'' at one of our museums, an open house that
highlights our programs, exhibits, and resources through workshops and
demonstrations. This event attracts more than 2,000 teachers each year
and coincides with similar events in several Smithsonian Affiliate
Museums across the country. We also endeavor to build lasting
relationships with the teachers who participate in our programs by
asking them to help us review publications, offer critiques of our
programs, and provide expertise in developing new curriculum ideas.
One other observation that the Smithsonian can offer, which was
echoed in the testimony of witnesses and committee members during the
hearing, is that Schools of Education should not be the only outlet for
the training and development of the nation's teachers. The Smithsonian
often partners with Schools of Education to share ideas and collaborate
on better ways to reach teachers throughout their careers. For example,
the Smithsonian is partnering with Project Zero at the Harvard School
of Education to research how museums enrich student learning and has
hosted summer seminars for the Association of Teacher Educators, an
organization of university professors who train pre-service teachers.
Lastly, it is clear from the discussion at the Committee hearing
that America's teachers are pressed for time and resources, and
therefore need access to content and skills training in ways that are
more accessible, more convenient and more tailored to each teacher's
individual needs. Aptly, the Smithsonian is now in the process of
developing an array of distance learning programs that eventually will
become a system of ``professional development on demand'' where
teachers can access training on the subjects they are teaching when
they are getting ready to teach them. Utilizing the technological
advances available to more and more schools, the Smithsonian is
devising ways to offer teachers remote access to our professional
development programs via videoconferencing and the World Wide Web. For
teachers who might not have access to Smithsonian programs in their
communities, or who may not have the opportunity to travel to
Washington, D.C., on a regular basis, distance learning will open our
doors to a whole new audience of educators.
In sum, the Smithsonian Institution is committed to the education
of all of our nation's citizens and is actively seeking out new ways to
reach them outside of the typical museum visit. Through our
professional development programs for teachers, the Smithsonian is
sharing its expertise and resources with those who need it most, and in
the process is creating a learning community from which all of us can
benefit. I hope that these comments prove helpful to the Committee in
its efforts to improve the education of our nation's children, and I
welcome the chance to work with you in the future to make that
possible.